A U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bomber crashed on Monday shortly after takeoff from Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California’s Mojave Desert, the base said.
Aerial video footage of the crash scene, about 100 miles (161 km) north of Los Angeles, showed a charred, smoldering patch of the desert floor roughly the size of a football field as an emergency vehicle drove along the perimeter of the site.
“Please join me in praying for the B-52 crew at Edwards Air Force Base and the entire Edwards community,” said Rep. Vince Fong (R-Calif.) in a post on X.
There were no large pieces of debris readily visible in the footage.
“Emergency crews immediately responded to the scene and the situation is ongoing,” the base wrote in a post on X.
The multi-engine jet bomber crashed “shortly after takeoff on the Edwards airfield at 11:20 a.m.,” the base said in the official alert on X.
There was no immediate word on the number of crew members aboard the plane, or on whether anyone survived.
The B-52 Stratofortress is a long-range bomber that was introduced in the 1950s as a central part of U.S. air power. The planes are capable of carrying conventional and nuclear weapons, and they have been used in a range of U.S. military confrontations, most recently in the war with Iran.
The bomber usually has a crew of five, including a commander, pilot, radar navigator, navigator, and electronic warfare officer. It also can carry a payload of up to 70,000 pounds and has a range of 8,800 miles, the Air Force says.
The Air Force says it is expecting to operate B-52s until the year 2050.
Both the Air Force and NASA carry out test flights of new and experimental aircraft at the air base, which is located in the Mojave Desert, according to its website. Earlier this month, NASA’s X-59 experimental aircraft flew faster than the speed of sound in a milestone event at Edwards Air Force Base, the space agency said.
The crash is one of several involving the U.S. military that have occurred in the past few weeks.
On May 17, two Navy EA-18G Growlers collided with one another in midair in an air show at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, the military said.
Over the past weekend, a military plane crashed near Mount Rainier in Washington state during a training flight, local officials said.
Before the crash on Monday, the most recent fatal incident involving a B-52 occurred in 2008, when six Air Force members died when a bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean after taking off from a base in Guam. The plane was due to take part in a parade flyover.
The Epoch Times, CNBC
