B-52 bomber crash in California likely 'not survivable' for 8 people aboard: military

The B-52 wedge that crashed after takeoff from a U.S. Broadcast drive alkali in Southern golden state had eight people aboard, and officials say the initial indications are "the crash was not survivable."

This is a breaking news update and this file will be updated. A previous version of the story follows below.

A B-52 bomber crashed shortly after takeoff Monday morning at a U.S. Air force base in Southern California's Mojave Desert, officials said.

There was no information yet on the crew, however aerial footage showed virtually nothing left of an aircraft. Black smoke rose from a large swath of charred desert at Edwards Air Force Base near what appeared to be a runway, with emergency vehicles nearby. The military hasn't said whether the bomber was armed.

The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, typically crewed by five people, is a long-range bomber that entered service in 1955. Designed to carry both conventional and nuclear weapons, it has been used in conflicts ranging from the Vietnam War to recent operations in the Middle East.

The plane crashed at around 11:20 a.m. Local time, the military said on the social platform X. By the afternoon, the airfield remained closed and all inbound aircraft were being diverted. Non-commercial visitor passes for the base were suspended "to allow the installation to focus entirely on emergency response operations," officials said in a statement.

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 160 kilometres north of Los Angeles. The 412th Test Wing, which runs the base, also conducts developmental testing of all U.S. 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 Chuck Yeager broke the speed of sound in 1947.

The way the B-52 crashed so quickly after takeoff without getting very high or going far makes aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti suspect an some kind of flight control malfunction. But it's too soon to say what might have caused the control problem.

"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 U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. 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.

Monday's incident marked the first crash ​of a B-52 Stratofortress since the same type of bomber crashed on the island of Guam in May 2016, according to the ⁠Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives, a Geneva-based organization that collects global aviation accident data. All seven crew ⁠members aboard that aircraft survived.

The crash on Monday also comes almost a year after the pilot of a regional airliner flying over North Dakota last July made an unexpected sharp turn to avoid a possible mid-air collision with a military B-52 bomber that was in its flight path.

---

---