Sad to see this happen. At least all of the crew ejected and were able to avoid serious injury. Having spent almost 6 years in the Air Force, I always feel their pain at such times a little more personally. Hopefully, no one on the ground was injured...that often takes much more time to ascertain. Mark
Rob- Good the crew all survived. About the same thing on all the official USAF news outlets as the Montana newspaper. With an aircraft that large, good thing nobody on the ground was hurt. Apparently the crew did suffer injuries during the jections and landings, but no details.
It will be interesting to see what the cause is. The B-1 always seemed like a bit of a lemon with lots of accidents. If memory serves the last one was a couple years ago when the one had brake failure and ran off the runway then burned.
If you want to set the table for a plane crash, Montana or Wyoming are good choices... You'd have to work pretty hard to find a building, or person, to hit... Glad it seems to have turned out this well, life-wise.
4 crew accounted for, good turnout to a bad situation. A few years ago nearby(California, Travis AFB {MAG base}), a B-1 trying to make a landing had the nose gear fail to come down. It circled around as the crew tried to get it to release and expend some fuel, but no dice. Ended up nose scraping to a stop. Didn't burn, everyone A-ok.
Was that at Travis or at Edwards? I can remember one instance pretty much the same where a B-1 diverted to Edwards. There was an article in some USAF magazine probably a decade ago about all the aircraft that had diverted with gear problems to land on the dry lake bed which reduced the amount of damage to the aircraft. In any case there seem to be an abnormally large number of stories about problems with the B-1. From what I understand the first 30 or so were kinda hand built and had serious parts compatability issues and were sent to the boneyard when the B-1 force was cut back. A few years ago there was a B-1 that spent quite a while in Afghanistan after having a significant engine fire. Rumor was that they normally would have ejected but there was some general flying as guest help and they decision was made to land rather than punch. Eventually the plane got out of there but it took quite a bit of doing.
I have a friend who flies Bones and he loves them. Over a long career with a big, very sophisticated aircraft, there will be some losses.
NA has a very distinguished history of making some really nice airplanes. +1 on the B-1 (any variant).
I think the last B1 crash was near one of my detachment points Diego Garcia.. The B1 program was a procurement nightmare..used to be a case study in some of my procurement classes of how not to procure...
The Democrats killed the original B-1A, a mach 2.5, non-stealthy aircraft with a capsule ejection system. The Republicans resurrected a thoroughly updated, stealthy version without the unneeded mach 2.5 capability. Because it was SAC, no PGM capability originally, (like the B-52) which cost quite a bit to add, but was worth every dime. Workhorse in SWA, where it could loiter forever and carry tons of PGMs optimized for whatever was needed. Has definitely earned its keep.
Southwest Asia encomposses most of the Middle East including, but not limited to, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. So we fought wars in SEA and SWA. I was in the first modern one in SWA, flying out of Saudi Arabia into Kuwait and Iraq dropping PGMs.
I was a B-1B test program manager in the late 90s where we integrated the 2000 lb JDAM on the rotary launchers in the 3 weapons bays. Before that it was just nuclear capable, not dropping conventional weapons so that is why it miss the first gulg war. It can carry 24 of the large JDAMs (GPS guided) and drop 3 per pass, independently targeted. It was used in great effect in the later wars and has a long loiter time. Now it has the Lightening Pod and even better capabilities. I never flew in it but the guys at Edwards let me back taxi it on the runway which was a joy with those long wings. A beautiful, sleak looking airplane and more expensive to operate than the B-52 but much less than the B-2. Definitely a good bombing platform.
