Stillwater Regional Airport is at odds with the U.S. Air Force over a C-17 which it claims landed without permission a week ago carrying the U.S. Air Force Academy women’s basketball team to a game at nearby Oklahoma State University. The big airlifter damaged the airport’s main runway in the process.

The C-17 Globemaster took off from Peterson AFB (which is near the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO) with the women’s team aboard on Sunday December 18. It landed at Stillwater Regional about an hour-and-a-half later. The airport is conveniently located near the campus of Oklahoma State which almost certainly explains why the Air Force Globemaster landed there rather than at Will Rogers Air National Guard Base in Oklahoma City 50 miles to the southwest.

However, Stillwater Airport officials said the aircraft was not authorized to land and that because it was too heavy, it damaged the runway and taxiway.

“Charter flights are required to receive permission prior to using the airport to ensure safety equipment, such as the Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting services, are in place as well as to make sure the airport can accommodate all needs,” the City of Stillwater affirmed in a press release. “In this case, this prior approval was neither requested nor granted by airport administration.”

The City of Stillwater went on to explain that the airport’s published runway (17/35, 7,401 feet) maximum weight capacity is 310,000 pounds for dual tandem aircraft. It pointed out that the C-17 that landed was approximately 400,000 pounds (45 tons over weight limit).

“Because of the extreme excess weight, engineers are determining the best method for assessing damage to the structural integrity of the runway and taxiway,” the release said. The City added that, “At this time, it is unknown why the pilot decided to land at (the airport).”

The U.S. Air Force begs to differ. According to the Associated Press, Air Force officials with the 911th Airlift Wing (based at Pittsburgh Air Reserve Station in Pennsylvania) said the flight was coordinated with the Stillwater airport five days before the landing.

“Internal Air Force reports indicate that the aircraft was within weight limits of triple-tandem landing gear and that the flight was coordinated with airport officials prior to landing,” Marjorie Schurr, chief of public affairs for the Air Force’s 911th Airlift Wing said in an email to the Associated Press.

But as local Oklahoma newspaper, the Enid News & Eagle pointed out, “The weight limit listed by the Stillwater airport said it was for dual-tandem aircraft and makes no mention of triple-tandem aircraft. The Stillwater Airport team also said the Air Force had made a request in October to land a C-17 at the airport and that it had denied that previous request thanks weight limit concerns.

As of December 23, Paul Priegel, director of Stillwater Regional Airport, said airport officials would be in communications with the Air Force and that they have asked the Federal Aviation Administration to open an investigation.

Calls and emails to headquarters Air Force, Air Mobility Command and the FAA brought no response Monday.

While the C-17 has held up slightly better than other aircraft in the Air Force inventory, (its mission capable rate was approximately 80% in 2022), a number of Globemasters have reached their original designed service-life limit of 25,000-30,000 flight hours. The Air Force has considered several programs to extend its service life but as a recent article on USAF airlift capacity pointed out, upgrade programs for things like C-17 corrosion abatement and flight deck upgrades are either unfunded or only partially funded.

Fully funded upgrades will be important for an airlifter the Air Force plans to keep flying into the late 2050s and 2060s according to Brig. Gen. Ryan Samuelson, Air Mobility Command’s deputy director of strategy, plans, requirements and programs.

The C-17 isn't particularly fast or fuel efficient. And as defense journalist, Tyler Rogoway noted in a 2019 piece on the Globemaster, “The fact is that the USAF does a lot of transport missions that don't really require the C-17's unique talents and the performance tradeoffs that go along with them.”

Flying the Air Force Academy’s sports teams to games would seem to illustrate Rogoway’s point. In an emailed response to a question on how often C-17s are tasked to fly sports teams, Air Force Academy spokesman, Dean J. Miller said that its inter-collegiate sports teams fly via military airlift anywhere 12 to 24 times per year.

“To save taxpayer funds and support required military airlift training, military airlift is requested in support of away games for inter-collegiate sports teams,” Miller says. “When military airlift is unpractical or unavailable, commercial airline tickets are purchased. If military airlift training requirements and away game requests align, inter-collegiate sports teams with 25 or more travelers might get a C-17 only 1 to 2 times out of about 12 away trips per season. ‘If’ 12 of our larger teams took one to two flights per season that is 12 to 24 military airlift flights per year.”

What numbers determine practicality would be difficult to parse. But using strategic airlifters to transport sports teams annually would not seem to be vital to U.S. interests most would argue. An argument over who is responsible for the damage to the runway and a taxiway at Stillwater Regional Airport will unfold in weeks to come.

Airport operators say the facility is safe and operational but the damage is significant. Stillwater staff has patched surface damage to runway and taxiways but there is concern that deeper-seated damage may be present.

“Because the airfield pavement consists of multiple levels, potential damage can be feet beneath the surface and not be evident at the surface for years,” the City’s press release asserts. “Tools like ground-penetrating radar may need to be deployed to gain a better understanding of what lies beneath the surface.”

Conveniently touching down adjacent to Oklahoma State may have seemed like a slam-dunk to the Air Force C-17 mission planners but time will tell if it’s a costly two-points for the USAF. The fact that the Academy’s team lost to Oklahoma State 62-44 may not bode well.