Portugal To Supply Second Hand F-16 Aircraft To Romania

Romania plans to buy second-hand F-16A/B jet fighters from Portugal to increase its combat capacity. Corneliu Dobritoiu, Romanian Defense Minister, said, “The machines are in a very good technical condition. Romania needs to acquire new jet fighters to replace its fleet of 49 Soviet-built MiG-21 Lancer jet fighters”. Nine envoys from the Romanian Ministry of National Defense were sent to Portugal to evaluate the state of the aircraft. The number of aircrafts and the deal amount was undisclosed. Prior to this Romania planned on procuring used F-16s from Netherlands, but the idea was dropped. Later the government considered buying 24 second-hand F-16s from the U.S. for about $1.3 billion.