For the first time in its history, a B-2 has crashed. The mishap happened as the bombed was attempting to take off from a base in Guam. Both pilots ejected safely. Here’s part of the report from Military.com:
The aircraft was taking off with three others on their last flight out of Guam after a four-month deployment, part of a continuous U.S. bomber presence in the western Pacific. After the crash, the other three bombers were being kept on Guam, said Maj. Eric Hilliard at Hickham Air Force Base in Hawaii.
At least one B-2 bomber had taken off safely from Andersen Air Force Base but was brought back when another aircraft plunged to the ground.
There were no injuries on the ground or damage to buildings, and no munitions were on board. Each B-2 bomber costs about $1.2 billion to build.
Thick, black smoke could be seen billowing from the wreckage at Andersen, said Jeanne Ward, a resident in the northern village of Yigo who was on the base visiting her husband.
Ward said she didn’t witness the crash but noticed a rising plume of smoke behind the base’s air control tower.
She said crowds began to gather as emergency vehicles arrived. “Everybody was on their cell phones, and the first thing everyone wanted to know was did the pilots make it out in time,” she said.
The Air Force, without identifying the pilots, said one was medically evaluated and released, and the other was in stable condition at Guam Naval Hospital.
Read the entire article here.
– Ward
{ 55 comments… read them below or add one }
Maybe it’s just a statistical blip, but it seems like the USAF has lost an awful lot of aircraft lately.
Always wondered about this: is the B-2 at the Wright-Patterson Air Museum a mock-up, or the real thing? Seems too well-made to be a mock up and shoot, if it’s $1.2 Billion a copy, what’s it doing on the show room floor?
Anyone have the answer?
Glad to hear the pilots are okay.
I wonder if it was hit by falling satellite?
Museum a/c is fatigue test article, a steel re-enforcement beneath the wing allows it to be displayed. Most mil a/c are tested until they ‘break’. Frequently the ‘break’ occurs well beyond design limits. If memory serves the B-2 test article ‘broke’ at 140-160 % beyond design limitations.
No matter how hard you try, Murphy will eventually come along for a ride.
It’ll be interesting to see what downed the bird. A birdstrike, computer casualty, CFIT? As Darth writes, it was eventually going to happen.
On the other hand, it’ll be annoying to listen to all the nattering naybobs hold forth in authoritative fashion about things they had never even heard of before breakfast.
Cheers,
Chief B.
“Maybe it’s just a statistical blip, but it seems like the USAF has lost an awful lot of aircraft lately.”
A few years back, the newspapers and TV journos had a very slow news cycle for the summer (not really, but heaven forbid the Deciders of what’s fit to print actually do some work). Then a girl was attacked by a shark. And then the media descended like plague. They covered shark attacks with the fervor of Greta Van Sustern all over Natalie Holloway.
Turns out that year shark attacks were actually down statistically.
The Air Force has lost more aircraft recently, but it’s like a twenty or forty percent increase in a single aircraft, the F-15, or one-two more a year than we are used to. Because the F-15s crashed by structural failures, the entire fleet was grounded. It is that backdrop that makes the air force seem one step away from armageddon.
Obama would have kept that plane aloft.
“you think maybe the airforce is purposely doing this to get more f-22s? nah couldnt be.”
Ah, “trutherism” rears its head. He must be part of the idiot-tinfoil complex that Ike warned us about.
“you think maybe the airforce is purposely doing this to get more f-22s? nah couldnt be.”
Ah, how charming! I wonder what pedigree of “trutherism” this is.
(obviously the details are probably/should be top secret) to counter ASAT threats.
Well….we are about to get a new kinder and gentiler military”aka neuterd to inifectualit so the UN can say its the only hope of the future” thanks to THE SAVIOR OBAMA! ALL HAIL THE Prophet!!
anyways did nt think about the coating
think that gets me is that stealth atm is getting weaker and weaker shouldnt we also focus as muck money on a more durable craft? Maybe we need to start thinking of small interceptor missies or lasers for a future bomber basicly and i know ill get hammered a b29 type of security
alos why is it wrong to build a MDS why is it evil to put missilke interceptors in space or lasers sence with the sun they could get damn powerful…..ppl need to think who is more important…my family,state country way of life or the feelings of ppl in iran germany france russia and china…like it or not china is here to stay…we need to get them to fix the yen or what ever there $ is called so thell stop underprising it. go for the heart….stop selling them food its there weak link.
one more thing you said china thought of the idea for the high alt nuke burst…..but iran has heard of it to. infact theve tested missiles on board there container ships…..and alquiada has up to 17 suspected container ships atm
lol and remember verc its spelled TROOF!!!!!!!
or at least my zionist masters tell me it is
That is a billion dollars down the toilet. Shit happens.
As a side note, why don’t people go over what they post and correct grammatical errors? I know this isn’t an English class, but damn, reading 10-plus errors in a comment is really annoying.
The one thing that I wonder about,because they only mention that the B-2 crashed & nothing beyond that,because we only have 20 B-2 Bombers with the loss of this one,COULD,just could it be salvaged.
1.4 billion dollars seems like a bit much just to write it off as a loss.Could they salvage this plane or is it just totally FUBAR’d?
That billion-dollar price tag is imprecise and misleading in this case. The billion-dollar figure comes from dividing the entire development cost of the B-2 among the 21 airframes produced. Just because one of the planes crashed, the US doesn’t lose 1/21 of the development cost. The cost per airframe is apparently around $200-300 million. That sounds pretty bad, but to put that into perspection, consider that a new 747 will cost ~$100-150 million. The 747 is conventional aluminum construction, and doesn’t exactly avoid radar. Unfortunate to lose one, but that’s still a pretty incredible safety record for a military aircraft.
So far,I haven’t heard any conspiracy theories(other than from me) yet that the B-2 Bomber was “shot down” by a Russian Electro-Magnetic ray gun.I guess thats what Old Crusty Chief was talking about.
“On the other hand, it’ll be annoying to listen to all the nattering naybobs hold forth in authoritative fashion about things they had never even heard of before breakfast.”
Seriously though,I’m sure I’m not the only one bothered by the fact that we have so few B-2 bombers to begin with & they cost sooooooo much.
I’d rather be mocked for wondering if they could put the damn (expletive expensive) thing back together & get it to fly again.
After all,for 1.4 billion dollars,I think that’s a very legitimate question to ask.
hey George, by your math then the V-22 and F-35 are absolute bargains. Is the fuzzy math you use just for airframes you like or can it be used on everything flying???
“wondering if they could put the damn (expletive expensive) thing back together & get it to fly again.”
You can take a broken airplane and turn it into a working airplane but you can’t take a smoking hole in the ground and turn it into an airplane. This wasn’t a hard landing – sounds like this went smack into the ground.
Wonder what happend. Fortunately the crew survived so they should have some idea what happened if not why. Gotta be loss of power or loss of control.
FOD? – I could see an object taking out on engine, but the airplane should not be lost.
HAL the computer would say “it must be human error”. As in “Burt, did you tighten the clevis pin for the control rod? Uh, I thought Ernie did that…”
My pet guess is that they had recently updated some critical software and after take off the controls stopped responding and the crew got a blue screen of death (perhaps as they tried pulling up they heard HAL say “I’m sorry, I can’t do that”..)
Damn it! I won’t blame the pilots, but we lost billion dollars worth of equipment. Is there going to be any replacement? BTW, which “Spirit of” crashed?
Manned I’m bummed. If it has to be one I want it to be ‘Christine’
As I commented over at ‘Wired’ (including bonus typos!) this will just make it harder to keep 16 combat coded A/C going on schedule. Unless of course in the ‘master plan’ the AF figured were supposed to already have lost one to attrition, then the AF might (doubtful) lower the number to 15 Combat Coded.
Hey Fox Three!
MC Rates: How soon we forget… http://www.defensetech.org/archives/003971.html
DA!
RE your first comment: Too true!
SMSgt Mac,
Yikes! My apologies..
what idiot would compare a Boeing 777 to a B2 bomber. That’s like comparing an RC Hobbie Plane to a Preditor Drone.
only in terms of reliability
i’m not saying the B-2 is bad, just saying i wouldn’t call it exceptional either
It was tail number 89-0127 “Spirit of Kansas”.
This points out the folly of our current acquisition system where our systems are so expensive and complex that someone failing to tighten a bolt can reduce our fleet of advanced bombers by 5%.
As an aside,I’m not surprised that the mission availability rate for the b-2 is lower than for other planes. A B-52, avionics aside, is a largely 1950′s aircraft and like those 1950′s cars you see on Cuban roads, with proper maintenence can run pretty much forever. A B-2 is a much more complex beast.
Fox News is reporting that each B-2 cost 1.2 billion dollars each.You can explain all you want to about how that cost breaks down,but a civilian hears 1.2 billion dollars & steam starts coming out of their ears.
God,imagine if we were to lose a Navy ship,especially an aircraft carrier,or submarine.The civilians would totally freak out.
Civilians don’t give a damn about safety records,they hear “1.2 billion dollars” & suddenly go deaf to anything else someone has to say.
NEWS BREAK
Cause of bomber crash discovered:
B-2 hit by the “U.S.A. 193″ satellite’s hydrazine tank!
Civilians don’t give a damn about safety records,they hear “1.2 billion dollars” & suddenly go deaf to anything else someone has to say.
roy your ability to insult amazes me some times
so NO we see a bil for one aircraft and we crap ourselves….like say F22 at 178mil a pop when otheres only cost around 65 to 75mil. Only idiots compaire the loss of a carrier which can launch 75-100 planes to a single bomber both entirely diffrent. Also (im not a ubeer carrier fan either so) carriers have all those fancy radars and crap. No if we lose a carrier to a another nation or crusie missiles or sub attack or well terrorist attack…….then we may lose around 800-200ppls maybe more that is a piss us of thing….specaly if they find out that we new the carriers and other ships didnt have enough anti-missile weapons and were vulnerable to mass vollies of missiles
I’d like to think most civilians have enough mental acquity to realize that there is no such thing as an ‘uncrashable’ airplane. It is one of those things that is too obvious to ignore, and after a possible ‘shock’ reaction, it wouldn’t take longer than remembering their last airplane ride before they realized that yes, ‘it was bound to happen’ sooner of later.
“Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.” – Captain A. G. Lamplugh
That old quote is ‘old’ for a reason.
On a lighter (ha!)note, I’m absolutely aghast once again over the willful ignorance of the media on the subject of B-2s. The Kansas City Star, which is close enough to Whiteman AFB and long-time B-2 advocate Congressman Norm Dicks to have a pipeline for good info, had an article with an entire paragraph on how the B-2 was built to carry nukes and then with the end of the Cold War, was converted to carry conventional weapons.
BS!
The B-2 was the first bomber since the advent of the atomic bomb that was designed from the get-go to carry both conventional and nuclear weapons. My guess is that the truth doesn’t support a long running strategy in the MSMS of charaterizing every expensive weapon we have as an ‘artifact’ of the Cold War. Idiots.
I wonder if the B2 was brought down by the much vaunted Illuminati Avian Division. I’ve heard they’ve been training birds for this for decades.
I’m thinking more Opus Dei, what with those damn dirty Papists trying to prove that flight is impossible thus concealing the Merovingian line and proving that evolution is false, QED. Or something.
Tower 11 was blown up with star wars rayguns! Black Ops! National Treasure!
Well here’s hoping that those $5,000.00 toilet seats & screw drivers have given us more B-2 Bombers than the [now] official “20″ figure given out now.I’ll never forget how shocked the public was when over or about “40″ F-117s flew to Saudi Arabia from the states,because the number was pretty much twice the number of F-117s “officially” thought to exist.I also hope that the 183 number for F-22s is a ploy to fool any potential enemies as to the true numbers.
These rash of crashes that the Air Force has been suffering lately have to be closely examined.
Forgive me for delving into the “fantastic,” but these crashes can’t all be chocked up to metal fatigue,poor maintenance,& flying birds.
What if the Russians & Chinese found a way to bring down our aircraft without missiles? Of course,even I admit that I wonder how the Russians could “see” a military jet flying stateside in order to knock it out of the sky(talking about the rash of F-15 crashes).The idea is too fantastic even for me.Hopefully,the military is investigating “all” possibilities,even the fantastic & absurd,for how various models of military aircraft are all,all of a sudden falling from the sky.I think that the week before the B-2 crash,they lost an EA-6 Prowler in Guam.
In my fantastic imagination,I’d imagine that the Russians or Chinese are “randomly” knocking out our aircraft without drawing unwanted attention,because,if too many planes fall out of the sky at once,we’ll get very suspicious,because no way in hell does our maintenance of our military aircraft “suck” THAT much.
Hey,at least I didn’t blame UFOs for our plane crashes.
Well, I’ve been told by an Al Quaeda squirrel who is working as a double agent for the Chinese that this is absolutely true. I would understand your skepticism if it was coming from a chipmunk or a woodchuck since we all know they serve Zionist interests.
I think it’s time for Occam’s Razor.
Roy,
Google AESA radar and eventually you find vague hints about using it to shoot down enemy missiles. So for every trick the bad guys may have up their sleeves, I suspect we have three classified ones of our own against near peers and many times that many against most threats.
Also, read my descriptions of the other recent F-15 accidents and consider that only one was clearly due to airframe wear…and that on a longeron that was never inspected because it was thought good for 30,000 hours while the Missouri aircraft had just 6,000 hours.
You could say that pilot made an incredible contribution by revealing an unknown F-15C problem and nipping it in the bud so that plenty of life remains in inspected F-15s until F-35 fielding is well underway.
I do want to say that in was I insinuating that our maintenance sucks.
Actually,I was also going towards electro-magnetic weapons as possible cause for the B-2 failure.The “MAIN” problem with this “theory”,is how do electro-magnetic waves “split a plane in half?”
That’swhat I was hinting at.Missiles leave fingerprints,& you can most certainly see one coming.Electro-magnetic waves are obviously invisible,& would be plausible if everything electronic just “cut-off” or died on the B-2.We obviously would never know what really happened,because hopefully the investigation into the crash is classified.So far,the “conspiracy nuts” are quiet,BUT…..if for some reason there is another B-2 crash,you know they’ll ALL be coming out of the wood work.
The “idea” that the Russians would have a[n electro-magnetic] “weapon” that could knock our technology & advanced weapons would also explain why they can afford to just field “crappy” conventional weapons,as if their [supposed] EM weapon could knock out their enemy’s weapons,what would then threaten their stuff?
Maybe Putin can afford to fly propeller bombers over our aircraft carriers because he has a hidden joker wild card in his hand.
Off-topic,there’s absolutely NO WAY Putin could make a military difference concerning Kosovo.Both it & Serbia are surrounded by EU/NATO countries that can throw a quarantine around it just like we did with Cuba in 1961.But he could try to hinder us in Central Asia(Kyrgyzstan) & Afghanistan.The B-2 crash after Kosovo’s declaration of independence & our missile shoot-down is VERY suspicious & quite a coincidence.
“I would understand your skepticism if it was coming from a chipmunk or a woodchuck since we all know they serve Zionist interests.”
While I definitely respect the sourcing of your rodent fare, I believe that it was put to rest that squirrels are in fact in the employ of the CIA and most of them are in fact working to undermine Iran, so by your account the CIA connection would definitely link the downing of the B-2s to cover up the Kennedy Assassination. That and Roswell.
“Actually,I was also going towards electro-magnetic weapons as possible cause for the B-2 failure.”
I give up. I try to mock and I just got nothing on that.
LIES!!! LIES!!! verc! we all know squerrls work for the vast and evil zionist/christain war pigs!! they have to they help the jews drain the blood from the muslim children for martinis!!!
everyone knows the only trust worthy animals for a godly man are the camel and the goat plus! when your done listining to what the goat says you can turn it around and [censored]
Last Sunday the U.S.A. recognized Kosovo’s Secession from Serbia.
Yesterday an annoyed Serbia significantly enhanced its S.A.-3 missiles’ range.
What goes around comes around.
Like a satellite.
P.S.: Now serious, how will the Disunited States behave if South Carolina felt emboldened tomorrow to follow Kosovo’s “example” to simply break away (again…) from the ex-Union, restoring White Supremacy, racial inequality, Jim Crow laws, no: The slave code for all its blacks, and other typical Southern caprices, or if a regional assembly in some Texas city hall unilaterally reintegrates that state into Mexico, pointing out China’s and France’s enthusiastic support?
One day you acephalous U.S. Americans WILL reap what you sow everywhere
- and not just by pushing THE FIRST VOLUNTARY satellite states in History (like Serbia) into your biggest “enemies”‘ orbit (Russia, in this case) !
What next: Prophet Mohammed caricatures on C-SPAN?
I agree: Occam’s Razor is waaaay overdue. (But I blame the Romans. After all what have they ever done for us?)
RE: My previous post. Strike ‘acquity’ and replace with ‘acuity’; as in “He should have had the mental acuity to not post on blogs or boards until he was used to operating his new laptop.”
We Americans do reap what we sow, it’s called harvest season. Now piss-off before we spread peace and democracy to your hometown.
When someone says “you Americans” it implies they live somewhere else.
My Question is why don’t we sell our B2 stealth Bomber or our Boeing ABL to countries like japan and Austrailia. I understand their our good friends but certain secrets should remain US.
Very odd.
While the vast majority of aircraft crashes involve problems with takeoff or landing, a catastropic crash (for the plane) immediately upon takeoff on a clear, sunny tropical day in the absence of any hostile action is certainly unusual.
The legal doctrine usually applied to aircraft crashes is “res ipsa locquitor” which means basically, “shit doesn’t just happen for no reason.”
If the cause is a bird strike or debris strike, the fleet can probably be up and running soon, but any other cause would indicate a likely flaw in maintenance or degradation of some important system. Either could ground the fleet of all 21 for a long time. A design problem is also possible, but a type of plane that has flown so long in similar conditions even with a fleet as small as twenty is unlikely to have any crude system design, unless there has been a recent upgrade).
Fear not – America has a full roster of failure social programs and foreign aid packages we can get B2 replacement monies.
Please keep your effet snobbery fantasies to yourself or I’ll have to send you a bill for the therapy.
In the meantime, I’ll go back to contributing new innovations to the American Military Industrial complex and fighting for defense spending relative to our GNP.
…just in case fallingEgoBomb is correct I’m headed out to the woods behind my house after work to unload 4 or 5 cans from my .50. Then I am going to bury some more ammo.
Transference and blaming America is very convenient.
I’ve got an opinion on probable causes like the next guy, but it would be extremely irresponsible to publically speculate on the cause of the crash without facts (not rumors) in hand.
However, I will assert that the chances of closing this out with a definitive cause or causes is very high – and even higher if onboard data recorders survived. We (the public)may never know, due to National Security concerns – but the AF WILL know relatively soon I think.
We’ll know soon enough
“DR5″ wrote: “My Question is why don’t we sell our B2 stealth Bomber or our Boeing ABL to countries like Japan”
Because the U.S. Americans want to be able to see all Japanese planes on radars lest they converge over Pearl Harbour again!
“Blake” wrote: “…just in case fallingEgoBomb is correct I’m headed out to the woods behind my house after work to unload 4 or 5 cans from my .50. Then I am going to bury some more ammo.”
Oh, that’s an easy one: Just put up a sign on your front lawn saying “Only Canadians live here!” and the invading armies will apologize, ignore you and drive around your place, looking for any remnant U.S. Americans in your neighbourhood. That’s what most U.S. American tourists abroad say anyway in case of doubt, and it always protects them 100 % !
(The invading united nations may be slightly puzzled, though, why you aren’t invading the U.S.A. too)
Aviation Week, citing a “senior air combat official”, claims that one of the B2 pilots indicated a fire on takeoff, which immediately preceded the loss of control that led to the crash.
The poster “Blake” wrote: “the UN could not usurp power in the US without inside help”
The following is a mind-boggling list of all the major wars and secondary conflicts (= without formal War Declarations) in which the U.S.A. were involved from 1776 to 2008 :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_military_history_events
Despite this de facto Orwellian state of perpetual war, the last (military) bombs only fell on the 7th of December of 1941 on U.S. American soil.
No offense, but for a brief moment I really thought I had crossed over into some Twilight Zone when I read that it is “the U.N.O. who wants to usurp the Power inside the U.S.A.”…
Plato?
> Despite this de facto Orwellian state of
> perpetual war, the last (military) bombs only
> fell on the 7th of December of 1941 on U.S.
> American soil.
Actually, in 1945 a Japanese bomb killed a woman and5 kids in Bly Oregon. Several other bombs landed throughout Northwest and uppermidwest. Though largely innefective they where still (military) bombs.
Although I do wonder why you have to use (military) as a qualifier? What exactly is a (military) bomb? and how are ist effects different from a (non-military) bomb?
I started to distinguish between “military bombs” (obviously a pleonasm…) and terrorists’ bombs after Oklahoma, W.T.C. I and especially after W.T.C. II, when YOU folks yourselves deliberately blurred the distinction between Terrorism (including Mega-Terrorism) and good old-fashioned war. Bushies and believers in the existence of “Al-Qaeda” typically have an over-simplified vocabulary, additionally reduced to acronyms and other initialisms, even in private (they share the same limited brain capacity).
I never do that when I’m exclusively among non-U.S. Americans. Bush’s “Terrorism” scarecrow only exists in the minds of U.S. Americans.
One day, when you U.S. Americans finally discover who’s really behind W.T.C. II, even you’ll agree with me. Until then keep running into the elephant in your doorway on the search for the real culprits. Or even re-electing them.
To the poster “NTV” : You wrote: “Actually, in 1945 a Japanese bomb killed a woman and 5 kids in Bly Oregon. Several other bombs landed throughout Northwest and uppermidwest. Though largely innefective they where still (military) bombs.”
I know: “Submarine-dropped” Japanese Airforce bombs attached to balloons that rode on the jet stream and were released haphazardly (by a timer) all over the North American continent, trying to cause city fires, forest fires and general panic. The Japanese were aware of the existence of the jet stream and of the directions of its currents well before the rest of the World.