For a Week, Custom Drones Probed a Nuclear Bomber Base. The Air Force Had No Good Answer.

For nearly a week in March, something was flying over Barksdale Air Force Base.

It wasn't a hobbyist with a DJI. According to a confidential internal Air Force briefing reviewed by ABC News, multiple waves of 12 to 15 custom-built drones operated over sensitive areas of the Louisiana installation — including its flight line — between March 9 and 15, 2026. The drones displayed non-commercial signal characteristics, long-range control links, and resistance to jamming. They lasted about four hours each day. They flew in varied routes of ingress. They appeared designed to avoid the operator being located. And according to the Air Force's own assessment, they were homemade — requiring advanced knowledge of both drone operations and counter-drone systems to build.

Barksdale houses the 2nd Bomb Group, which flies B-52 Stratofortresses. Those aircraft can carry both conventional and nuclear weapons and are part of the U.S. nuclear response posture. The base plays a critical role in Air Force Global Strike Command. During the week of March 9, while these drones were operating, the U.S. was conducting Operation Epic Fury — defensive strikes against Iranian missile sites using aircraft deployed from bases including Barksdale.

The Air Force said it had no effective countermeasures. "The drone incursions at BAFB pose a significant threat to public safety and national security since they require the flight line to be shut down while also putting manned aircraft already in-flight in the area at risk," according to the briefing. Flight line closures were ordered during each incursion. There was no activity on March 13 and 14 — the significance of which is unclear. Whether there has been activity since March 15, the date of the briefing, the Air Force has not said publicly.

Mick Roy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense and ABC News contributor, put it plainly: "It looked like this was deliberate and intentional to see just how they would react." That's a more serious characterization than "unaware enthusiast." And it's the DoD's working assessment.

The incident is a window into a problem the military has been working on for years without solving. Counter-small unmanned aircraft systems — C-sUAS — have been a stated priority. The Air Force's 319th Battle Lab, supported by the Kansas Air National Guard's 184th Wing, is running exercises through 2026 where industry demonstrates C-sUAS technologies. But Barksdale apparently didn't have the capability to stop a persistent, jamming-resistant homemade drone swarm from operating over its most sensitive areas for days.

This is the gap between the counter-drone industrial base and the operational reality at fixed military installations. The threat has moved faster than the defenses. Consumer-grade drones are one problem. Drones built by someone with advanced knowledge of signal operations, using non-commercial characteristics, designed to resist jamming and evade operator location — that's a different kind of problem, and it was operating over a base that houses nuclear-capable bombers.

The briefing document says analysts assessed "with high confidence" that unauthorized drones would continue to operate in and around Barksdale in the immediate future. That is not the language of a problem solved, or even contained. It's the language of an ongoing, unresolved vulnerability.

The context also matters: Barksdale was reportedly not the only target during this period, though details of other potential targets haven't been confirmed. The sophistication of the drones — custom-built, jamming-resistant, operationally evasive — suggests resources and intent that a casual hobbyist doesn't have. Who was behind them is not answered by anything made public.

What is answered is that for a week, the U.S. Air Force couldn't stop a fleet of homemade drones from flying over one of its most strategically important bases. That's the story.

DroneDJ first reported this story, based on ABC News's coverage of the leaked Air Force briefing. The briefing was dated March 15, 2026.