Every war the Spanish Air and Space Force has fought
The record includes the chemical bombing of the Rif from 1924, which Spain has never formally acknowledged. Where a consolidated sortie or loss figure exists in the official record it is given here; where accounts disagree, the range is shown and the disagreement named. Blank cells are blank because no figure could be verified, not because the fighting was small.
From the Rif War to NATO air policing today.
| Conflict | Years | Against | Main aircraft | Sorties | Aircraft lost | |
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| The Rif WarMorocco and the chemical bombingAeronáutica Militar | 1921–1927 | Republic of the Rif (Abd el-Krim) | — | — | — | |
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Reconnaissance, bombing and supply of besieged posts; from 1924 the aerial delivery of chemical weapons against the Rif population; air support for the Alhucemas landing in 1925. Spanish army aviation had flown in Morocco since December 1913, but the Rif War that followed the rout at Annual on 1 July 1921 became its main war — and the one Spain has been least willing to discuss. Spanish commanders asked for mustard gas as early as August 1921; with help from the German chemist Hugo Stoltzenberg, a plant at La Marañosa near Madrid produced it, and deliveries began in 1923. From 1924 aircraft dropped mustard gas, phosgene, diphosgene and chloropicrin on villages, markets and rivers — in the English Wikipedia summary, the first widespread use of gas warfare after 1918. The record rests on archive work by Rudibert Kunz and Rolf-Dieter Müller (Giftgas gegen Abd el Krim, 1990), Sebastian Balfour (Deadly Embrace, Oxford, 2002), who writes of massive quantities of mustard gas dropped on civilians, and, among Spanish historians, Juan Pando. The air arm also flew in the Alhucemas landing of September 1925, the first amphibious operation to use tanks and aircraft. The civilian death toll is unknown; later claims of cancer clusters in the Rif remain unproved. A motion in the Spanish parliament on 14 February 2007 asking Spain to acknowledge the systematic use of chemical weapons was rejected. Outcome Abd el-Krim surrendered on 27 May 1926 and the last Spanish operations ended on 9 July 1927. The number of gas bombs dropped and the civilian dead are not established; figures circulating online (for example, of bombs per day) could not be verified and are left out.
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| The Spanish Civil WarRepublicans, Nationalists, the Condor Legion and the Aviazione LegionariaRepublican air force (FARE) and Nationalist air arm | 1936–1939 | Each other | Polikarpov I-15 and I-16, Tupolev SB, Heinkel He 51and 5 more | — | — | |
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Both halves of the Spanish air arm fought each other, each with foreign support: Soviet aircraft and airmen for the Republic, the German Condor Legion and the Italian Aviazione Legionaria for the Nationalists. When the army rose in July 1936, most of the air arm’s men and aircraft stayed with the Republic, but its equipment was obsolete. Six German He 51s arrived for the Nationalists on 6 August; Italian aircraft followed, and in the end Italy sent about 764, including 376 CR.32 fighters. From October the Soviet Union supplied I-15s, I-16s and SB bombers to the Republican air force, with about 772 Soviet airmen. Germany’s Condor Legion rotated about 19,000 men through Spain and claimed 320 Republican aircraft in the air and on the ground plus 52 by anti-aircraft fire. On 26 April 1937 its bombers, with three Italian SM.79s, attacked Guernica in Operation Rügen. The death toll remains disputed: the Basque government said 1,654 in 1937; the local history group Gernikazarra counts 126, later 153; Raúl Arias Ramos gives 250 and Villarroya and Solé i Sabaté 300; a range of 170 to 300 is now widely cited. Franco’s side denied the raid, blaming the Republicans. In March 1938 Italian bombers from Mallorca, on Mussolini’s order, raided Barcelona 17 times in three days, killing up to 1,300. Outcome Nationalist victory on 1 April 1939. The Ejército del Aire was created on 7 October 1939 from the victorious air arm. Claims of aircraft destroyed are wartime claims by each side. Death tolls for Guernica and Barcelona are contested and given as ranges with their sources.
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| The Ifni-Sahara WarIfni and Spanish West AfricaEjército del Aire | 1957–1958 | Moroccan Army of Liberation | CASA 2.111, CASA 352, North American T-6 | — | — | |
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Bombing, close support and paratroop drops against the Moroccan Army of Liberation, including a joint Franco-Spanish air offensive in February 1958. The last colonial war fought by the Ejército del Aire began on 23 November 1957 when irregulars of the Moroccan Army of Liberation attacked Spanish posts around Sidi Ifni. Two days later, on 25 November, five CASA 2.111 bombers — Spanish-built Heinkel He 111s — bombed positions around Tiliuín while five CASA 352 transports, licence-built Junkers Ju 52s, dropped 75 paratroopers to relieve the besieged garrison. North American T-6 trainers armed with machine guns, bombs and rockets flew close support and earned a reputation for toughness. It was, in effect, a war fought with the aircraft of the 1930s, while the F-86 Sabres just delivered under the Pact of Madrid played no part in the accounts consulted. In February 1958 France and Spain mounted a joint offensive with about 150 aircraft that broke up the Army of Liberation in the Sahara. The war ended on 30 June 1958. Spanish casualties, all services, were 190 dead, 500 wounded and 80 missing. Outcome A joint Franco-Spanish offensive in February 1958 broke up the Army of Liberation in the Sahara; the war ended on 30 June 1958. The claim that US restrictions barred American-supplied aircraft from the war is widely repeated but was not verified here and is left out. Aircraft types flown in the war are limited to those named in the sources.
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| Bosnia: Deny Flight and Deliberate ForceNATO operations over Bosnia and HerzegovinaEjército del Aire | 1993–1995 | Bosnian Serb forces | EF-18 Hornet, CASA C-212 Aviocar | — | — | |
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Spanish EF-18s flew in NATO’s enforcement of the UN no-fly zone and in air strikes; transport aircraft supported UNPROFOR. Operation Deny Flight, which ran from 12 April 1993 to 20 December 1995, was NATO’s long enforcement of the UN no-fly zone over Bosnia, and Spain was one of twelve allies that contributed aircraft. Spanish EF-18 Hornets, operating from Italy, flew combat air patrols, close air support and strike missions, directed from the Combined Air Operations Centre at Vicenza. In May 1995, when NATO struck the Bosnian Serb ammunition depot at Pale, Spanish EF-18s dropped laser-guided bombs alongside US Air Force F-16s. The risk was real for the transport crews too: on 8 March 1994 a Spanish CASA C-212 carrying UN personnel from Zagreb to Split was hit by a missile near the Krajina border and damaged. Across the whole operation NATO pilots flew 100,420 sorties. The experience of flying NATO packages with laser-guided weapons became the foundation for the Hornet force’s later deployments over Kosovo and Libya. Outcome Operation Deny Flight ended on 20 December 1995 after the Dayton agreement. The C-212 incident and the Pale strike are from the English Wikipedia summary; the Spanish sortie total was not found.
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| Kosovo: Operation Allied ForceNATO air campaign against YugoslaviaEjército del Aire | 1999 | Federal Republic of Yugoslavia | EF-18 Hornet, KC-130H | — | — | |
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Spanish EF-18s flew ground-attack, air-defence suppression and combat air patrol missions under NATO command, supported by KC-130 tankers. The NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia opened on 24 March 1999 on the order of the Alliance’s Secretary General, the Spaniard Javier Solana, who the evening before had directed the Supreme Allied Commander, General Wesley Clark, to begin air operations. Spain committed F/A-18 Hornets and KC-130 tankers. The Hornets flew ground-attack, suppression of enemy air defences and combat air patrol missions over Serbia and Kosovo under NATO command, as they had over Bosnia. No Spanish aircraft loss appears in the sources consulted. For Spain the campaign carried a particular political weight, because the Alliance that ordered it was led by a Spaniard, Javier Solana, and because it was the second time in four years that Spanish Hornets had dropped weapons in the Balkans. Over 78 days NATO flew more than 38,000 combat missions. The campaign ended on 10 June 1999. The legality of the operation without a UN Security Council mandate remains debated, and the Spanish share of the sorties has not been published in the sources consulted. Outcome The air campaign ended on 10 June 1999. Spanish sortie numbers were not found.
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| Libya: Unified ProtectorNo-fly zone and arms embargoEjército del Aire | 2011 | Libyan government forces | EF-18 Hornet, Boeing 707 tanker, CN-235 MPA | — | — | |
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Hornets enforced the UN no-fly zone; tankers and maritime patrol aircraft supported the coalition and the arms embargo. No Spanish ground strikes are recorded in the sources consulted. When the UN Security Council authorised a no-fly zone over Libya in 2011, Spain offered fighters, tankers and maritime patrol aircraft alongside a frigate and a submarine. The sources differ on the number of Hornets: the Hornet article says four enforced the no-fly zone, the account of the intervention says six F-18s were sent, so the page gives four to six. They were joined by two Boeing 707-331B tankers and two CN-235 maritime patrol aircraft. Spain’s role, in the account of the intervention, was air control and maritime surveillance to stop arms reaching the Libyan regime; no Spanish ground strikes are recorded in the sources consulted. The government also made the bases at Rota, Morón and Torrejón available to the coalition. It was a limited, politically cautious contribution, and in that it followed the pattern of Spanish air operations since Bosnia: real combat risk in the air, but tightly bounded by national rules of engagement. Outcome The Spanish contribution ended with the coalition operation in 2011. Four or six Hornets according to source; no official Spanish sortie total was found.
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| NATO air policingBaltic and Estonian rotationsEjército del Aire y del Espacio | 2006–present | — | Mirage F1M, Eurofighter, EF-18 Hornet | — | — | |
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Quick Reaction Alert detachments under NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission, flying from Šiauliai in Lithuania and Ämari in Estonia. NATO has policed the airspace of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania since they joined in 2004, with allies rotating fighters every four months. Spain first deployed in August 2006 with three Mirage F1Ms at Šiauliai. It returned with Mirage F1s in 2013 and, from January 2015, with Eurofighters at Ämari. After Russia seized Crimea in 2014 the Spanish detachments became larger and more frequent: Eurofighters in 2016, 2018, 2021, 2023, 2024 and 2025, and EF-18 Hornets in 2017, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2024. The rotations grew from four aircraft to eight, and the Hornet detachment that began at Šiauliai on 27 November 2025 had eleven. Spain also hosts a NATO Combined Air Operations Centre at Torrejón, which directs air policing south of the Alps. These missions rarely involve more than intercepting Russian aircraft flying without transponders, but they are the service’s steadiest operational commitment since 2006. Outcome Ongoing; the rotations grew from three aircraft in 2006 to eleven Hornets in late 2025. In Afterburner Spain’s First Kill Over Romania Dates and aircraft numbers are from the Wikipedia rotation table; re-check the 2025 rotation against NATO Allied Air Command releases.
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Nothing matches that search.
Every figure, checked
- NATO: Air policing — securing NATO airspaceBaltic Air Policing since 2004; CAOC Torrejón covers the airspace south of the Alps
- NATO Allied Air Command: Air Policinghow the mission works; no national detail
- Oxford University Press: Sebastian Balfour, Deadly Embrace: Morocco and the Road to the Spanish Civil War (2002)mustard gas dropped on civilians, from Spanish military archives and survivors
- Encyclopaedia Britannica: Guernica, Spain26 April 1937 bombing by German aircraft; Picasso
Figures verified 2026-09-28. Back to the Spanish Air and Space Force.