On September 4 the Venezuelan Air Drive deployed a pair of F-16 fighters close to the U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke Class destroyer USS Jason Dunham within the Caribbean Sea, as an supposed present of pressure amid excessive tensions between the 2 nations. This occurred after the U.S. Navy deployed a a flotilla of warships for operations off the coast of Venezuela, together with a minimum of three destroyers and a nuclear assault submarine. Washington additionally renewed efforts to oust the administration of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, together with by putting a bounty on his head. Venezuela was one of many first shoppers for the F-16, and signed an order for 18 fighters in Might 1982. The F-16A/B fighters are a number of the least succesful variants nonetheless in service anyplace on the planet right now, nonetheless, and lack any form of past visible vary weaponry, which severely limits their capacity to threaten American warships or to defend native airspace.
Venezuelan F-16s stay the one ones on the planet fielded by a Western Bloc adversary, with the fighters reportedly having been supposed to be phased out of service within the 2010s and changed by Russian Su-35s, earlier than the demise of President Hugo Chavez in 2013 was adopted by financial decline and a de-prioritisation of army modernisation efforts. The Venezuelan fighter fleet continues to be extensively thought of probably the most succesful in Latin America, though that is primarily as a result of its deployment of twenty-two Su-30MK2 fighters which had been procured from Russia within the 2010s. The Su-30MK2 fleet right now represents by far the best impediment to potential hostile efforts to violate Venezuelan airspace, and are the longest ranged fighter class within the Americas outfitted with a variety of past visible vary weaponry together with Kh-31A anti-ship cruise missiles. The deployment of F-16s, moderately than Su-30s, to overfly the USS Jason Dunham, thus might have been supposed to sign restraint, whereas additionally avoiding putting the rather more precious fighters in danger.
