Six names. That is what the U.S. Air Force released on March 14, 2026, two days after a KC-135 Stratotanker crashed in Iraq. Maj. John Klinner. Capt. Ariana Savino. Tech. Sgt. Ashley Pruitt. Capt. Seth Koval. Capt. Curtis Angst. Tech. Sgt. Tyler Simmons. Investigators believe the aircraft collided with another KC-135. Both were flying in the same dark sky, on the same endless cycle of missions that has been keeping Operation Epic Fury in the air.

Retired Col. Troy Pananon flew KC-135s and KC-10s for over two decades. He commanded the 100th Air Refueling Wing at RAF Mildenhall. When asked to assess what Epic Fury is doing to his former community, he did not mince words.

“Parts Reminiscent of the Wright Brothers”

“There’s a huge strain on the entire ecosystem,” Pananon said. The KC-135 entered service in the late 1950s. The airframes flying today were built in the Kennedy era. “Parts on that aircraft,” he said, “are still reminiscent of some things invented by the Wright brothers.”

The 100th Air Refueling Wing — his former unit at RAF Mildenhall — operates 15 tankers on a normal day. During a surge, the airfield can support over 30. Operation Epic Fury is a surge. It has been a surge for nearly a month, with no end in sight. Every fighter flying over Iran, every B-2 on a bombing run, every surveillance aircraft orbiting the Persian Gulf needs gas. Repeatedly. Around the clock.

The Invisible Backbone

Nearly half of the entire U.S. tanker fleet resides in the Air Reserve Component — reservists and part-time airmen called up and sustained on missions that stretch their training and their families. Without the tankers, the campaign stops. Every airstrike, every intercept, every intelligence flight depends on them.

Yet the tanker force rarely makes headlines. Its airmen don’t fire missiles or drop bombs. They orbit. They extend hoses. They transfer fuel. They do it again. And then again at 2am. And at dawn. For weeks.

Ashley Pruitt was one of those airmen — a boom operator, the specialist who guides the refueling boom into a receiver aircraft from a station in the KC-135’s tail. Pananon, who knew her, called her “full of energy and extremely bright.” She was 29.

When the Machine Breaks Down

The March 12 crash is believed to have been a midair collision between two KC-135s operating in the same Iraqi airspace. The precise circumstances are still under investigation. But the broader context is not a mystery: two elderly aircraft, crewed by exhausted personnel, flying in a congested wartime environment with minimal margin for error.

Pananon is now a 737 first officer with United Airlines — far from the world he left in 2023. But he is watching what is happening to his community. Operation Epic Fury may be winning in the headlines, with targets destroyed and Iranian defenses degraded. The cost, carried largely by quiet crews in tanker cockpits, is being paid in a different currency entirely.

Sources: The War Zone; U.S. Air Force; Air & Space Forces Magazine