US Air Force's largest aircraft used to remove $5B in illegal drugs from Calif.

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | July 7, 2026 | By Madilynne Medina,

[artichokegrower]

The U.S. Air Force used its largest aircraft to move $5 billion worth of illegal drugs from a storage facility in California to eventually be destroyed in the Midwest.

[artichokegrower]

Mission would have been more successful if they had also loaded some foreign drug smugglers and dropped them off over Nebraska

[BenLurkin]

Why not dump it in the ocean?

[Red Badger]

Then people would be snorting fish...............

[logi_cal869]

“landing fear”

smh

[Steven Scharf]

Some of the bales, etc have a potential to float and thus float ashore.

[Steven Scharf]

Not sure why it matters whether they used the largest plane or not. It is a deliverly vehicle.

[PhiloBedo]

There is a facility in Indiana (Crane, possibly) that has the ability to incinerate nerve gas. Seems like a good place to neutralize fentanyl, and other drugs.

[Blood of Tyrants]

I think there’s some environmental concerns.

[fso301]

[rlmorel]

I had the same thought. But hey, they are all from the Columbia School of Journalism.

[Getready]

What about dumping it on the DNC, or IRGC?

[Salvavida]

Mojave Desert............??????
China Lake Naval Weapons Testing Facility???????

[Roadrunner383]

My friends and I burned all the weed we could get our hands on back in the 70s.

[fidelis]

Not sure why it matters whether they used the largest plane or not. It is a deliverly vehicle.

Probably to emphasize the huge amount of drugs that were being transported, 50 metric tons. Not the just the amounts, but also the safe distances between storage piles one has to maintain when shipping hazardous chemical substances. You can't just cram that amount of HS into a C-130 so they used a C-5a.

[null and void]

Mojave Desert............??????
China Lake Naval Weapons Testing Facility???????

Death Valley seems more appropriate/ironic...

[catnipman]

why not just drop the drugs in the ocean and use them for naval target practice?

[ridesthemiles]

CONTAMINATION OF THE OCEAN

[gildafarrell]

There are some drug cartels crying about now much to our relief.

[Paal Gulli]

The C-17 can haul 85 imperial tons, it’s significantly cheaper to operate than a C-5, and I seriously doubt a C-17 would be “cubed-out” on “50 metric tons of seized narcotics.”

They probably used a C-5 for the job (instead of a C-17) because they had one sitting around idle that they needed to put some hours on to justify its upkeep. Or they had a C-5 aircrew that needed the flight time to keep them from turning into pumpkins.

[OrangeHoof]

Is there a toilet large enough to flush all of it?

Is Hunter Biden contracted to ingest the rest of it?