Marine Corps Retires Last AV-8B Harrier Squadron, Ending 50+ Years of Jump-Jet Operations

U.S. Marine Corps held a Harrier Sundown ceremony today at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina, retiring its last operational AV-8B squadron after more than 50 years of jump-jet operations. Marine Attack Squadron 223, known as the Bulldogs, was the final unit to fly the AV-8B Harrier II.

The squadron completed its last operational deployment aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima as part of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit and the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group. During that deployment the unit participated in Operation Southern Spear, striking boats suspected of carrying illicit narcotics in the Caribbean.

U.S. Operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro earlier in 2026. The AV-8B entered service as an upgraded version of the original AV-8A Harrier that first reached Marine Corps units in 1971. It featured a larger composite wing, improved performance, greater payload capacity, and later received night-attack systems and AN/APG-65 radar taken from F/A-18 Hornets.

Marine Harriers flew thousands of sorties during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and later conducted combat operations over the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and against ISIS. Lt. Col. Thomas D. Gore, former commanding officer of VMA-223, flew an AV-8B over the Kajaki Dam in Helmand province, Afghanistan, between November 2011 and May 2012.

In 2024 the final two Marine pilots completed AV-8B qualification training. Maj. Eric Shiebe, executive officer of VMA-223, and Sgt. Tatiana Rios, a fixed-wing aircraft airframe mechanic with the squadron, flew an incentive flight at Cherry Point on May 19, 2026.

The 2022 Marine Aviation Plan outlined the transition from the AV-8B to the F-35B. A change-of-command and redesignation ceremony for VMFA-214 at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona, in March 2022 marked one of the early squadron conversions. An F-35B attached to VMFA-211 took off from the amphibious assault ship USS Essex on April 22, 2026.

The AV-8B remains in frontline service with Italy and Spain. U.S. Marine Corps AV-8Bs with VMA-223 flew over the North Carolina coast on May 15, 2026. The retirement ends more than four decades of AV-8B service and closes the Marine Corps era of Harrier jump-jet operations.