{"id":464441,"date":"2026-03-08T15:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T15:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/464441\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T15:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T15:33:08","slug":"two-more-us-aircraft-arrive-at-raf-fairford-military","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/464441\/","title":{"rendered":"Two more US aircraft arrive at RAF Fairford | Military"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Two more US air force planes have landed at RAF Fairford, after the UK allowed Washington to use its bases to take part in defensive operations in Iran.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Footage broadcast on Sunday showed two Boeing C-17 Globemaster transportation planes landing at the airbase in Gloucestershire, days after B-1 Lancer bombers arrived.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">One of the C-17s arrived from Glasgow Prestwick airport, after it was redirected there because of poor weather and visibility at Fairford. The BBC reported that the aircraft was carrying munitions and spare parts for the bombers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Another C-17 arrived from the McGuire airbase near Wrightstown, New Jersey, according to flight tracking data.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">It is unclear whether the aircraft will leave Fairford later to fly to the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The Ministry of Defence declined to comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The increase of military traffic arriving at Fairford has taken place after Donald Trump said the UK was seeking to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/mar\/07\/trump-starmer-iran-criticism\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cjoin wars we\u2019ve already won\u201d<\/a> after a week of the US-Israeli bombing campaign on Iran.<\/p>\n<p><a data-name=\"placeholder\" href=\"https:\/\/interactive.guim.co.uk\/uploader\/embed\/2026\/03\/iran_8march-zip\/giv-325544CulrL7XcV6W\/\" class=\"dcr-1eupayo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a map showing US, Israeli, Iranian and proxy strikes in the Middle East<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Keir Starmer has allowed the US to use UK bases for \u201cspecific defensive operations\u201d. His change in stance came after British allies and the RAF base at Akrotiri, Cyprus, were subject to retaliatory attacks in the last week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">A hanger at the Cypriot airbase was damaged by an Iranian-made drone believed to have been launched by the Tehran-backed militia group Hezbollah in Lebanon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Starmer is also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/2026\/mar\/07\/uk-preparing-aircraft-carrier-for-possible-middle-east-deployment\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sending HMS Dragon<\/a>, a destroyer with air defence capabilities, to the region.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Meanwhile, the Royal Navy reduced the readiness needed for its flagship aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, to five days before any potential deployment. The vessel is in dock in Portsmouth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Trump posted on Truth Social on Saturday night: \u201cThe United Kingdom, our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">He added: \u201cThat\u2019s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don\u2019t need them any longer \u2013 But we will remember. We don\u2019t need people that join Wars after we\u2019ve already won!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two more US air force planes have landed at RAF Fairford, after the UK allowed Washington to use&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-464441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}