U.S. B-52H Bomber and F/A-18 Fighter Jets Make Powerful Air Appearance Near Venezuelan Skies
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On 24 November, a U.S. B-52H from Minot AFB, callsign PAPPY11, escorted by U.S. Navy F/A-18s, flew an unusually close track along Venezuela’s northern coast near Caracas, just hours after Washington designated the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization.
On 24 November 2025, a U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress flying alongside U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets approached the Venezuelan coastline in one of the most visible U.S. airpower demonstrations over the Caribbean in recent years, as reported by the Venezuelan channel NTN24 and other regional outlets and tracked in real time by Flightradar24. According to open-source tracking reporting, the bomber came from Minot Air Force Base and flew a route that brought it north of Caracas with Navy fighters in close escort, the second such mission in less than a week. NTN24 describes the sortie as “muy cercano”, one of the closest U.S. overflights to Venezuelan territory since the beginning of the current U.S. military buildup in the southern Caribbean. A few hours earlier, Washington had formally designated the Venezuelan “Cartel de los Soles” as a foreign terrorist organization, sharply escalating the legal and political framework around its long-running pressure campaign against President Nicolás Maduro’s government. The flight also followed a new FAA Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM), KICZ A0012/25, urging civil operators to exercise caution in Venezuelan airspace due to heightened military activity and reported GNSS interference. The convergence of strategic bomber patrols, carrier aviation, airspace warnings and terrorism designations makes this episode a key indicator of how fast the regional security equation is shifting for both Venezuela and its neighbors.
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A U.S. B-52H Stratofortress rumbled along Venezuela’s coastline with Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets tucked in close escort, a highly visible reminder that Washington can park heavy strike power in the Caribbean on short notice (Picture Source: U.S. Air Force)
Open-source flight data and regional media reconstruct a detailed picture of the mission profile. NTN24 reports that the B-52, using the callsign PAPPY11, departed Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, transited the continental United States from north to south and then crossed the Gulf of Mexico with its transponders switched off. According to the same account, the crew activated the Mode S transponder again over the Caribbean, north of Aruba and Curaçao, where the aircraft turned toward Venezuela and began a coastal run just a few kilometers off the Paraguaná peninsula in Falcón state. From there, the bomber continued in parallel to the shoreline, threading between mainland Venezuela and the islands of La Orchila and La Tortuga before positioning near Maiquetía, the international airport serving Caracas, at approximately 05:21 Eastern Time (10:21 UTC), as noted by NTN24. Along this segment, at least three Navy F/A-18s formed up on the bomber; their tracks appeared under “RHINO” callsigns on public feeds, and NTN24 states that two of them, RHINO05 and RHINO06, remained on station north of Aruba and Curaçao even after the B-52 had turned away.
Flightradar24’s public interface provides an additional layer of open-source verification. In a post on X, the company noted that multiple U.S. military aircraft off the Venezuelan coast, including the B-52, F/A-18s and an E-2 airborne early warning aircraft, were topping its “most tracked flights” list, all operating with active Mode S transponders and being tracked via multilateration (MLAT), with coverage varying as the formation moved. More than 70,000 users were simultaneously following the B-52’s track on the platform at the peak of interest, confirming the scale of public attention. NTN24 emphasizes that during the overflight, Venezuelan civil airspace appeared almost empty of private traffic; on public tracking screens, only the U.S. military aircraft were visible along the northern coastline. Finally, north of Margarita Island, the bomber and its escorts turned back toward the open Caribbean and once again disappeared from civilian tracking when their transponders were switched off, mirroring NTN24’s reconstruction based on Flightradar24 data.
The assets on display demonstrate the scale of capability Washington is prepared to project. The B-52H Stratofortress is a long-range, subsonic heavy bomber able to carry roughly 31.5 tonnes of ordnance, including stand-off cruise missiles and precision-guided munitions, to altitudes approaching 50,000 feet and across intercontinental distances when supported by aerial refuelling. Introduced in the 1950s, the type has undergone successive modernizations and remains central to U.S. strategic conventional strike, with life-extension programs planned to keep it operational for decades.
The escorting F/A-18E/F Super Hornets are carrier-based multirole fighters configured for both air defence and strike missions; their larger airframe and increased internal fuel capacity extend their range relative to the legacy Hornet, and Block III upgrades enhance networking and reduce radar signature. Recent imagery from U.S. Southern Command shows Super Hornets from Carrier Air Wing Eight operating from the nuclear-powered carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) in formation with a B-52 over the Caribbean, highlighting the Ford strike group’s integration into these bomber presence operations. Electronic-attack variants such as the EA-18G Growler provide stand-off jamming and electronic warfare capabilities, while KC-135 and KC-46 tankers based at MacDill and other hubs supply the aerial refuelling that enables round-trip sorties from the U.S. mainland.
The 24 November sortie did not occur in isolation but as part of a sustained tempo of air, naval and special operations activity under Operation Southern Spear, a regional campaign officially framed as targeting narcotics-linked “narco-terrorist” networks. On 20 November, multiple B-52Hs from Minot flew into the Caribbean with tanker support and “joint service fighters,” in what Air Forces Southern publicly described as a “bomber attack demo” to deter illicit drug networks and defend the homeland. In October and early November, B-52s and later B-1B Lancers flew similar presence patrols off northern South America, in some cases accompanied by F-35B stealth fighters operating from forward-deployed Marine units and amphibious ships. At sea, USS Gerald R. Ford and her escorts entered U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility in mid-November, joining destroyers, maritime patrol aircraft and MQ-9 Reaper drones already patrolling the region, in what several Western outlets describe as the largest U.S. naval and air buildup in the Caribbean in decades. In parallel, NTN24 and Reuters have documented an unusually heavy rotation of U.S. aircraft through the former Roosevelt Roads Naval Station at Ceiba, Puerto Rico, with a wide mix of aircraft conducting exercises as part of preparations for what U.S. officials have described to Reuters as a “new phase” of operations related to Venezuela. Venezuela has responded with large-scale mobilizations and exercises and has placed air-defense units such as Russian-supplied Buk-M2E and other systems on higher alert, while the FAA notes a rise in military activity and GNSS interference in the Maiquetía Flight Information Region and neighboring FIRs.
For Washington, the advantages of such a demonstrative mission are primarily strategic signalling and intelligence-gathering rather than immediate kinetic effect. A B-52 formation flying with carrier-based fighters at high altitude and with its transponder on is a visible instrument that reassures partners, communicates resolve to adversaries, and forces Venezuela to activate its radar and command-and-control network, providing valuable electronic order-of-battle data to U.S. and allied analysts. The extremely long range of the B-52 combined with stand-off munitions means the aircraft can train realistic approach profiles without entering Venezuelan airspace, while still rehearsing the types of routes and timing needed for any future strike packages. For the Navy, integrating the Gerald R. Ford’s air wing into these profiles validates cross-domain tactics between bomber and carrier aviation and tests communications, refuelling plans and deconfliction in a complex electromagnetic environment. These flights also exploit the transparency created by OSINT platforms: the fact that tens of thousands of civilians followed the mission live on Flightradar24, with the platform itself highlighting the B-52, F/A-18s and an E-2 as its most-tracked flights and noting that all were being followed via MLAT despite variable coverage, amplifies the political messaging at virtually no additional cost to the U.S. military.
The timing of this operation adds significant weight beyond that of a routine exercise. By conducting this flight mere hours after formally designating the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization, Washington explicitly frames its bomber presence within a counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics context rather than a purely geopolitical dispute, echoing how Operation Southern Spear has been presented in official communications. Senior U.S. officials have emphasized that the FTO designation “opens up a wide range of new options,” substantially expanding the legal and political framework for future military actions targeting individuals and assets linked to Maduro’s inner circle, even though the designation itself does not automatically authorize the use of force. Alongside a publicly acknowledged campaign of lethal strikes on suspected drug shipments and the deployment of B-1 and B-52 bombers, Marines, and carrier strike groups, this show of force near Caracas is widely interpreted by analysts as a calibrated effort to convey to Maduro that the costs of persisting with current policies will continue to escalate. Concurrently, the FAA’s warning about threats and GNSS interference affecting civil aviation at all altitudes underscores how this pressure campaign is reshaping risk assessments not only for military operations but also for commercial airlines and insurers operating throughout northern South America.
At the regional level, the mission reinforces several overlapping strategic messages. Geopolitically, it shows that U.S. strategic aviation can operate close to Venezuelan centers of power in coordination with carrier air wings and regional bases, despite Caracas’ efforts to frame the buildup as an attempt at regime change. Geostrategically, the proximity of a nuclear-capable bomber, even if carrying conventional ordnance, to Venezuelan territory, coupled with the FTO designation, moves the confrontation further into a space where the U.S. openly equates Maduro-linked networks with terrorist threats, potentially influencing how allies in the hemisphere position themselves diplomatically. Militarily, repeated B-52 and B-1 profiles probing along similar corridors force Venezuela to keep its limited high-end air defenses on constant alert, consuming resources and exposing tactics, while also testing how far U.S. aircraft can approach without triggering dangerous intercepts. For Russia, Iran and other external partners of Caracas, these patterns signal that any attempt to reinforce Venezuela with additional strategic systems would unfold under persistent U.S. ISR and strike coverage; for Caribbean and South American neighbors, they highlight the risk that their airspace and FIRs could become transit corridors or buffer zones in a crisis.
The B-52/F-18 sortie off Venezuela’s coast, the FAA’s airspace warnings and the terror designation of the Cartel de los Soles mark a qualitative shift from episodic shows of force to a sustained, legally framed coercive posture in the Caribbean. The assets involved, the U.S. Air Force’s oldest bomber still in frontline service, cutting-edge carrier aviation from USS Gerald R. Ford and a dense web of refuelling and ISR support, demonstrate that Washington is willing to commit high-end capabilities to shape Maduro’s strategic calculus rather than relying solely on sanctions and diplomatic pressure. For Venezuela, this raises the stakes of any miscalculation in the air or at sea, as even a routine intercept or radar illumination could be misread in a climate where narcotics, terrorism and regime survival have become tightly entangled. For observers and policymakers across the region, the 24 November flight will likely be remembered less for the exact number of kilometers it came from the coastline than for what it signaled: that the margin between demonstrative overflight and potential kinetic action around Venezuela has narrowed, and that airpower is once again at the center of how great-power pressure is applied in the Western Hemisphere.
Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group
Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.
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On 24 November, a U.S. B-52H from Minot AFB, callsign PAPPY11, escorted by U.S. Navy F/A-18s, flew an unusually close track along Venezuela’s northern coast near Caracas, just hours after Washington designated the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization.
On 24 November 2025, a U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress flying alongside U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets approached the Venezuelan coastline in one of the most visible U.S. airpower demonstrations over the Caribbean in recent years, as reported by the Venezuelan channel NTN24 and other regional outlets and tracked in real time by Flightradar24. According to open-source tracking reporting, the bomber came from Minot Air Force Base and flew a route that brought it north of Caracas with Navy fighters in close escort, the second such mission in less than a week. NTN24 describes the sortie as “muy cercano”, one of the closest U.S. overflights to Venezuelan territory since the beginning of the current U.S. military buildup in the southern Caribbean. A few hours earlier, Washington had formally designated the Venezuelan “Cartel de los Soles” as a foreign terrorist organization, sharply escalating the legal and political framework around its long-running pressure campaign against President Nicolás Maduro’s government. The flight also followed a new FAA Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM), KICZ A0012/25, urging civil operators to exercise caution in Venezuelan airspace due to heightened military activity and reported GNSS interference. The convergence of strategic bomber patrols, carrier aviation, airspace warnings and terrorism designations makes this episode a key indicator of how fast the regional security equation is shifting for both Venezuela and its neighbors.
A U.S. B-52H Stratofortress rumbled along Venezuela’s coastline with Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets tucked in close escort, a highly visible reminder that Washington can park heavy strike power in the Caribbean on short notice (Picture Source: U.S. Air Force)
Open-source flight data and regional media reconstruct a detailed picture of the mission profile. NTN24 reports that the B-52, using the callsign PAPPY11, departed Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, transited the continental United States from north to south and then crossed the Gulf of Mexico with its transponders switched off. According to the same account, the crew activated the Mode S transponder again over the Caribbean, north of Aruba and Curaçao, where the aircraft turned toward Venezuela and began a coastal run just a few kilometers off the Paraguaná peninsula in Falcón state. From there, the bomber continued in parallel to the shoreline, threading between mainland Venezuela and the islands of La Orchila and La Tortuga before positioning near Maiquetía, the international airport serving Caracas, at approximately 05:21 Eastern Time (10:21 UTC), as noted by NTN24. Along this segment, at least three Navy F/A-18s formed up on the bomber; their tracks appeared under “RHINO” callsigns on public feeds, and NTN24 states that two of them, RHINO05 and RHINO06, remained on station north of Aruba and Curaçao even after the B-52 had turned away.
Flightradar24’s public interface provides an additional layer of open-source verification. In a post on X, the company noted that multiple U.S. military aircraft off the Venezuelan coast, including the B-52, F/A-18s and an E-2 airborne early warning aircraft, were topping its “most tracked flights” list, all operating with active Mode S transponders and being tracked via multilateration (MLAT), with coverage varying as the formation moved. More than 70,000 users were simultaneously following the B-52’s track on the platform at the peak of interest, confirming the scale of public attention. NTN24 emphasizes that during the overflight, Venezuelan civil airspace appeared almost empty of private traffic; on public tracking screens, only the U.S. military aircraft were visible along the northern coastline. Finally, north of Margarita Island, the bomber and its escorts turned back toward the open Caribbean and once again disappeared from civilian tracking when their transponders were switched off, mirroring NTN24’s reconstruction based on Flightradar24 data.
The assets on display demonstrate the scale of capability Washington is prepared to project. The B-52H Stratofortress is a long-range, subsonic heavy bomber able to carry roughly 31.5 tonnes of ordnance, including stand-off cruise missiles and precision-guided munitions, to altitudes approaching 50,000 feet and across intercontinental distances when supported by aerial refuelling. Introduced in the 1950s, the type has undergone successive modernizations and remains central to U.S. strategic conventional strike, with life-extension programs planned to keep it operational for decades.
The escorting F/A-18E/F Super Hornets are carrier-based multirole fighters configured for both air defence and strike missions; their larger airframe and increased internal fuel capacity extend their range relative to the legacy Hornet, and Block III upgrades enhance networking and reduce radar signature. Recent imagery from U.S. Southern Command shows Super Hornets from Carrier Air Wing Eight operating from the nuclear-powered carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) in formation with a B-52 over the Caribbean, highlighting the Ford strike group’s integration into these bomber presence operations. Electronic-attack variants such as the EA-18G Growler provide stand-off jamming and electronic warfare capabilities, while KC-135 and KC-46 tankers based at MacDill and other hubs supply the aerial refuelling that enables round-trip sorties from the U.S. mainland.
The 24 November sortie did not occur in isolation but as part of a sustained tempo of air, naval and special operations activity under Operation Southern Spear, a regional campaign officially framed as targeting narcotics-linked “narco-terrorist” networks. On 20 November, multiple B-52Hs from Minot flew into the Caribbean with tanker support and “joint service fighters,” in what Air Forces Southern publicly described as a “bomber attack demo” to deter illicit drug networks and defend the homeland. In October and early November, B-52s and later B-1B Lancers flew similar presence patrols off northern South America, in some cases accompanied by F-35B stealth fighters operating from forward-deployed Marine units and amphibious ships. At sea, USS Gerald R. Ford and her escorts entered U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility in mid-November, joining destroyers, maritime patrol aircraft and MQ-9 Reaper drones already patrolling the region, in what several Western outlets describe as the largest U.S. naval and air buildup in the Caribbean in decades. In parallel, NTN24 and Reuters have documented an unusually heavy rotation of U.S. aircraft through the former Roosevelt Roads Naval Station at Ceiba, Puerto Rico, with a wide mix of aircraft conducting exercises as part of preparations for what U.S. officials have described to Reuters as a “new phase” of operations related to Venezuela. Venezuela has responded with large-scale mobilizations and exercises and has placed air-defense units such as Russian-supplied Buk-M2E and other systems on higher alert, while the FAA notes a rise in military activity and GNSS interference in the Maiquetía Flight Information Region and neighboring FIRs.
For Washington, the advantages of such a demonstrative mission are primarily strategic signalling and intelligence-gathering rather than immediate kinetic effect. A B-52 formation flying with carrier-based fighters at high altitude and with its transponder on is a visible instrument that reassures partners, communicates resolve to adversaries, and forces Venezuela to activate its radar and command-and-control network, providing valuable electronic order-of-battle data to U.S. and allied analysts. The extremely long range of the B-52 combined with stand-off munitions means the aircraft can train realistic approach profiles without entering Venezuelan airspace, while still rehearsing the types of routes and timing needed for any future strike packages. For the Navy, integrating the Gerald R. Ford’s air wing into these profiles validates cross-domain tactics between bomber and carrier aviation and tests communications, refuelling plans and deconfliction in a complex electromagnetic environment. These flights also exploit the transparency created by OSINT platforms: the fact that tens of thousands of civilians followed the mission live on Flightradar24, with the platform itself highlighting the B-52, F/A-18s and an E-2 as its most-tracked flights and noting that all were being followed via MLAT despite variable coverage, amplifies the political messaging at virtually no additional cost to the U.S. military.
The timing of this operation adds significant weight beyond that of a routine exercise. By conducting this flight mere hours after formally designating the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization, Washington explicitly frames its bomber presence within a counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics context rather than a purely geopolitical dispute, echoing how Operation Southern Spear has been presented in official communications. Senior U.S. officials have emphasized that the FTO designation “opens up a wide range of new options,” substantially expanding the legal and political framework for future military actions targeting individuals and assets linked to Maduro’s inner circle, even though the designation itself does not automatically authorize the use of force. Alongside a publicly acknowledged campaign of lethal strikes on suspected drug shipments and the deployment of B-1 and B-52 bombers, Marines, and carrier strike groups, this show of force near Caracas is widely interpreted by analysts as a calibrated effort to convey to Maduro that the costs of persisting with current policies will continue to escalate. Concurrently, the FAA’s warning about threats and GNSS interference affecting civil aviation at all altitudes underscores how this pressure campaign is reshaping risk assessments not only for military operations but also for commercial airlines and insurers operating throughout northern South America.
At the regional level, the mission reinforces several overlapping strategic messages. Geopolitically, it shows that U.S. strategic aviation can operate close to Venezuelan centers of power in coordination with carrier air wings and regional bases, despite Caracas’ efforts to frame the buildup as an attempt at regime change. Geostrategically, the proximity of a nuclear-capable bomber, even if carrying conventional ordnance, to Venezuelan territory, coupled with the FTO designation, moves the confrontation further into a space where the U.S. openly equates Maduro-linked networks with terrorist threats, potentially influencing how allies in the hemisphere position themselves diplomatically. Militarily, repeated B-52 and B-1 profiles probing along similar corridors force Venezuela to keep its limited high-end air defenses on constant alert, consuming resources and exposing tactics, while also testing how far U.S. aircraft can approach without triggering dangerous intercepts. For Russia, Iran and other external partners of Caracas, these patterns signal that any attempt to reinforce Venezuela with additional strategic systems would unfold under persistent U.S. ISR and strike coverage; for Caribbean and South American neighbors, they highlight the risk that their airspace and FIRs could become transit corridors or buffer zones in a crisis.
The B-52/F-18 sortie off Venezuela’s coast, the FAA’s airspace warnings and the terror designation of the Cartel de los Soles mark a qualitative shift from episodic shows of force to a sustained, legally framed coercive posture in the Caribbean. The assets involved, the U.S. Air Force’s oldest bomber still in frontline service, cutting-edge carrier aviation from USS Gerald R. Ford and a dense web of refuelling and ISR support, demonstrate that Washington is willing to commit high-end capabilities to shape Maduro’s strategic calculus rather than relying solely on sanctions and diplomatic pressure. For Venezuela, this raises the stakes of any miscalculation in the air or at sea, as even a routine intercept or radar illumination could be misread in a climate where narcotics, terrorism and regime survival have become tightly entangled. For observers and policymakers across the region, the 24 November flight will likely be remembered less for the exact number of kilometers it came from the coastline than for what it signaled: that the margin between demonstrative overflight and potential kinetic action around Venezuela has narrowed, and that airpower is once again at the center of how great-power pressure is applied in the Western Hemisphere.
Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group
Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.
