Air Force officials have confirmed that eight people were killed Monday when a B-52 Stratofortress was involved in an accident shortly after takeoff at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
According to the 412th Test Wing, the aircraft was carrying eight people on a routine test mission when it went down on the Edwards airfield at 11:20 a.m. PDT. Col. James Hayes, deputy commander of the 412th Test Wing, said during a press conference Monday that the B-52 was supporting the radar modernization program on a local test sortie.
Hayes said the aircraft went down immediately after takeoff and caught fire. Officials said the accident site was contained to the runway area at Edwards, and the base later reopened access to visitors and personnel.
“Today, Edwards Air Force Base experienced a horrible tragedy and we lost eight great Americans,” Hayes said during the briefing. “This crash is deemed to be unsurvivable and right now our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those that lost their loved ones.”
Hayes said the crew included military personnel, government civilians and government contractors, though officials said further details would be released after next of kin notifications were completed. Boeing confirmed Monday that two of its employees were among those on board the aircraft. The company said it was in contact with their families and was offering support.
The cause of the accident has not been determined. Hayes said the Air Force will first stand up an interim safety board, followed by a safety investigation board and then an accident investigation board. The safety investigation board process is expected to take about 30 days, while the accident investigation process could take up to six months, according to Hayes.
Officials said there was no weaponry on board the aircraft. Edwards was standing down operations Tuesday as recovery work continued, though Hayes said the grounding applied to operations at Edwards and not the broader B-52 fleet.
Tragic and amazing at the same time. Still doing operational test flights for new equipment on a 75-year-old aircraft. We really used to build them right.
A plane does not crash on takeoff, unless it has a fatal defect not picked up on routine maintenance or preflight.
Very much symptoms of a large load shift after T/O causing an unrecoverable departure from the CG envelope. Hopefully, it wasn’t loaded wrong.
Similar to the National Airlines Baghram crash. I, however, am almost always wrong when it comes to causes of accidents.
Rip to the crew and passengers.
Given that the debris field is contained in a single location and the fact the plane made a 180° turn prior to crash, the accident may be a classic stall/spin due to failed Impossible Turn.
A FOD or Bird can take out both engines in a B52 because of the pod arrangement where an uncontained failure in one engine affects its brother. Un-contained engine failures can happen sometime after an engine ingests a foreign object and forming a small crack that fatigues over time usually on high power.
I’m assuming you’re making an exception for THE MOST COMMON underlying cause of accidents – pilot error. Otherwise, your statement is absurd.
Many planes have crashed due to pilot error on takeoff. In the military and airlines this would be extremely rare.
So why do we train for power on stalls at take off???