“We lost eight great Americans," James Hayes, the Deputy Commander at Edwards Air Force Base, said at a news conference.
By Associated Press
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — A B-52 bomber crashed shortly after takeoff Monday morning at a U.S. Air Force base in Southern California’s Mojave Desert, and all eight people aboard have died, military officials said.
“We lost eight great Americans,” James Hayes, the Deputy Commander at Edwards Air Force Base, said at a news conference.
Aerial footage showed virtually nothing left of the aircraft that went down around 11:20 a.m. during a routine test mission at the base, which is north of Los Angeles, the base said on its Facebook page. Black smoke rose from a large swath of charred desert near what appeared to be a runway on the base, with emergency vehicles nearby.
It was not immediately clear what caused the crash.
“After reviewing the footage of the crash, it was deemed that this was an unrecoverable crash and unsurvivable,” Hayes said. “This is a tragedy — something we never plan for, but we’re always prepared for.”
The base started an interim safety board to do initial fact-gathering which will lead to safety investigation. The whole process could take up to six months, Hayes said.
The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is a long-range bomber that entered service in 1955. Designed to carry both conventional and nuclear weapons, it has been used in conflicts involving the U.S. military from Vietnam to Iran.
Edwards Air Force Base is home to a large portion of the U.S. Air Force’s aircraft test and development efforts and is about 100 miles (161 km) north of Los Angeles. The 412th Test Wing, which runs the base, also conducts developmental testing of all Air Force aircraft, weapons systems, software and components before purchase by the service as well as throughout their lifespan.
The vast desert base is also where Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager reached a speed of Mach 1.05 and broke the sound barrier in 1947.
The airfield closed and all inbound aircraft were being diverted Monday. Non-commercial visitor passes for the base were suspended as emergency crews doused the flames and worked to account for all personnel, officials said in a statement.
It’s too soon to say what might have happened.
The way the B-52 crashed so quickly after takeoff without getting very high or going far makes aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti suspect some kind of flight control malfunction.
It’s possible the controls were rigged wrong after maintenance, he said, or a catastrophic engine problem or a failure of a piece of equipment that was being tested.
“I think it was definitely a controllability issue. Now, whether that was tied to an engine failure, a flight control failure, or some new testing device failure, I’m not sure,” said Guzzetti, who used to investigate crashes for both the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.
Although the Air Force has been flying B-52 bombers for more than 70 years, testing out new equipment on a plane can create new challenges.
“A flight test is always riskier than normal operations, so that’s why you have specially trained test pilots, and you should have other safety protocols,” Guzzetti said.
Toropin reported from Washington D.C. AP Transportation Writer Josh Funk contributed to this story from Omaha, Nebraska.
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