Argentine Air Force bought a used aircraft at double its market price, Clarín investigation finds

The Argentine Air Force (FAA) acquired in 2025 an Embraer ERJ-140LR aircraft for USD 4.085 million, nearly double the price the same provider had quoted for an equivalent and better-conditioned plane to a private client just months later, according to an investigation published on Saturday by the newspaper Clarín. The transaction, awarded to the US firm Regional One Inc. in a tender resolved in record time and challenged by a competitor, displays irregularities in the design of the bidding terms, the technical evaluation, and the payment circuit, and forms part, according to the publication, of a pattern replicated in at least three other aircraft purchases by the force since 2021.