B-2 bombers from Missouri were used in US-Israeli strikes on Iran
Several B-2 Spirit bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base near Knob Noster, Missouri, were among the aircraft used in the early stages of the United States-Israeli airstrikes on Iran that killed Iran’s supreme leader.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior Iranian leaders were killed when U.S. and Israeli forces began striking targets around 9:45 a.m. Saturday local time in Iran.
“Over the last two days, the joint force has launched hundreds of missions from land and sea and delivered tens of thousands of pieces of ordnance,” said Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a briefing Monday with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon.
“This included American B-2 bombers, which again, similar to (Operation) Midnight Hammer, flew a 37-hour round-trip sortie from the continental United States, dropping precision penetrating munitions on Iranian underground facilities across the southern flank and slightly deeper,” Caine said.
On Sunday, the U.S. Central Command posted on social media that the stealth bombers, armed with 2,000-pound bombs, “struck Iran’s hardened ballistic missile facilities.”
U.S. Central Command did not specify how many B-2s were used, but Air & Space Forces Magazine reported that four B-2s took part in the strikes.
As Caine noted, this was the second time in less than a year that B-2 bombers were used for airstrikes on Iran.
In June, Caine said that seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers dropped 14 30,000-pound GBU-57 “bunker-buster” bombs on three Iranian nuclear facilities. The operation was the largest B-2 operational strike in U.S. history
In July, Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin visited the base to commend the airmen on Operation Midnight Hammer’s success, according to a news story from the 509th Bomb Wing Public Affairs.
“The success of this mission demonstrates the precision and potency of a combat-ready Air Force and strategic innovation,” Meink said. “The warfighting capability of the Total Force Airmen here and the B-2 Spirit was tested with the world watching, and Team Whiteman performed flawlessly.”
Whiteman Air Force Base, located in Johnson County, Missouri, about an hour and a half southeast of Kansas City, is the only operational base for the B-2. The first aircraft, the Spirit of Missouri, was delivered in December 1993.
