WASHINGTON — Independent government auditors found that the Coast Guard’s aircraft availability rates and inventories overall have seen a bit of a decline in the past two decades, though they remained generally on par with the availability of the Pentagon’s fleets.

The Coast Guard’s aviation fleets are currently comprised of roughly 100 H-65 helicopters, 50 H-60 helicopters and 50 fixed-wing aircraft varying in size and purpose, from medium-range surveillance to heavy transport.

Taken together, the Congressional Budget Office found a slight drop in both availability rates and inventory, though fixed-wing aircraft availability overall increased from 41.8 to 50.5 percent from 2006 to 2024, while helicopter availability dropped from 60.7 to 47.8 percent.

“CBO found that Coast Guard helicopters tend to have availability rates that are lower than the rates for Army helicopters, higher than the rates for Department of the Navy (DoN) helicopters, and similar to those of Air Force helicopters,” according to the report published Thursday.

Regarding aircraft inventories, while CBO wrote that the number of aircraft “has generally declined,” the dynamic was flipped.

“Fixed-wing aircraft have decreased in number, whereas the number of helicopters has increased,” the report said. The Coast Guard had 68 fixed-wing aircraft and 134 helicopters in 2006 compared to 53 fixed-wing aircraft and 146 helicopters in 2024. (In total, CBO numbers show a combined drop of just three aircraft when comparing inventory for 2024 to 2006.)

Auditors noted the recent reconciliation legislation provided $3.7 billion to the Coast Guard to procure additional aircraft. The bill also includes $2.2 billion for depot-level maintenance facilities.

During a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Adm. Kevin Lunday, who is nominated to become commandant of the Coast Guard, said the service is looking to procure up to 40 MH-60 helicopters with those funds as well as six C-130Js. Lunday’s nomination was publicly announced earlier this year but the White House did not formally submit his name to the Senate until this fall.

During the hearing, some Democratic senators said the Coast Guard purchased “two luxury executive jets for more than $172 million” and raised concerns that funding could have been used to sustain search and rescue stations the Coast Guard is now considering shutting down as part of its force restructuring efforts instituted by the administration.

Regarding the jets, Lunday said those planes are necessary for operations to give senior DHS and service leadership access to secure command and control capabilities during emergencies.

Lunday said of the potential closures that the analysis was still in its early stages and that he could not commit to whether certain facilities will be shuttered.

“But there is a statutory process if the Coast Guard were to move forward with any closure of stations that includes public comment and input, and we know that the members of the public are very interested in the Coast Guard facilities and stations in their communities,” he said.