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Tag: U.S. Air Force

  • B-1 Bomber Crash Forces Crew Of Four To Eject

    A U.S. Air Force B-1B bomber crashed this morning in near the small town of Broadus in southeastern Montana this morning.

    The crash took place sometime before 9 o’clock this morning during what Air Force officials called a routine training mission. Emergency services from around the region were called in to assist with the situation, including volunteer firefighters from nearby Ekalaka and the Carter County Sheriff’s Department.

    The bomber that crashed was attached to the 28th Bomb Wing out of Ellsworth Air Force Base. It was one of 28 B-1s in service at the base. The B-1B Lancer is an air-to-ground bomber developed in the 1970s as a replacement for the famed B-52 Stratofortress. It was originally designed to penetrate Soviet airspace quickly, deliver its payload, and evade Soviet air defenses. It entered service in 1986 during the Reagan administration. One hundred of the aircraft were originally delivered to the Air Force. Roughly a third of those remain in service.

    The B-1 is crewed by four people: two pilots and two weapons systems officers. Witnesses to the crash said they say parachutes deploying shortly before an explosion as the aircraft was going down. The names of the crew members have not been released, but Colonel Kevin Kennedy, commander of the 28th Bomb Wing, told MTN News that all four had escaped with only minor injuries.

    Witnesses said that a plume of smoke from the crash was visible for several hours afterward. The cause of the crash is as yet undetermined. In his statement Colonel Kennedy said that the Air Force’s efforts at present were focused on taking care of the crew and their families and working with local authorities to secure the crash scene.

    This is at least the third aircraft the Air Force has lost this summer. Last month we brought you a story about a QF-4 target drone that crashed near a Florida highway. That crash was the second at the same base in less than a month.

  • Drone Crashes Near Florida Highway

    Drone Crashes Near Florida Highway

    A U.S. Air Force drone crashed shortly after takeoff in the Florida panhandle near Tyndall Air Force Base today, forcing the closure of U.S. highway 98.

    The cause of the crash is not yet known, but authorities say that the highway will remain closed for 24 hours. The drone carries a small self-destruct charge designed to bring the plane down if it wanders off its programmed course. The battery attached to that charge runs down after about 24 hours, according to Air Force officials.

    The drone in question is a QF-4, which is a full-sized fighter jet used primarily for testing weapons systems. It belongs to the Air Force’s 53rd Weapons Evaluation Group. The QF-4 is an unmanned variant of the old F-4 Phantom II fighter jet. The F-4 was the primary air superiority fighter of both the Air Force and the Navy in the 1960s and 1970s, before being replaced by the F-15 Eagle in the Air Force and the F-14 Tomcat in the Navy. A few F-4s still see active service in the air forces of other countries, but those still owned by the U.S. military are almost exclusively QF-4 drones.

    Witnesses told local media that the drone crashed during takeoff around 8:25 this morning, bursting into flames and sending up a large column of black smoke.

    This is the second drone from Tyndall AFB to be destroyed recently. A week ago another drone was deliberately brought down by Air Force personnel over the Gulf of Mexico. The drone reportedly failed to respond to repeated attempts to land it, and its controllers feared that it could present a danger to civilians, so they steered it out over the gulf and detonated its self-destruct charge.

    Officials say the crash presents no further threat to the local population, and that the closure of the highway is only a precaution until crews can begin recovering the aircraft.