Posted on 07/23/2008 5:03:05 AM PDT by A.A. Cunningham
All six crew members aboard a U.S. B-52 bomber that crashed into the Pacific Ocean off Guam earlier this week are dead, the U.S. Air Force said on Wednesday.
The plane crashed on Monday, while on its way to participate in a flyover to mark a Liberation Day parade in Guam, a U.S. territory.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
So Sad
Salute to the fallen
With no idea as to cause, may I suggest that 50 year old airframes need more rigorous pre-flight inspections.
Salute.
It's hard if you're not in an ejection seat. But the seats work pretty well, although they're not zero-zero and the gas routing up to the hatch and back down to the seat is kind of Rube Goldberg.
If all six guys in seats were killed either they flew into something unaware or there was a massive failure; a wing came off at low altitude or a fuel tank exploded, something like that. Odds are it was crew error, it almost always is.
so sad, prayers are with the families of these men & women. was stationed on guam and watched the b-52’s fly over every day. they are awesome to watch.
ping
I hope the flyover wasn’t being used as an excuse for hot dogging the Buff. Somebody should post that video of the B-52 wing over that crashed at a USAF air show....
Have you ever ejected from a BUFF? My husband was a Radar Nav in B-52's and the joke for the 'downstairs guys' was they needed to hold their O Club cards over their heads as they pulled the arming handle so that when they were dug out of the ground the rescue crews would know whose body they had. The Nav team had no illusions about a safe egress.
I suggest they be replaced with new planes. I wouldn't rely on a 50 year old car, much less a 50 year old plane.
I got an incentive flight on a B-52 when I was stationed at Kincheloe AFB in the UP of Michigan. I rod on that jump seat on the hatch. Scary ride, but damn fun !
Even back then the egress was iffy at best......prayers up for these aviators and their friends and family. These things we do so others can be free......
Stay safe !
Mea culpa! I was an EW so I was thinking of the upward-ejecting seats. Navs and RNs definitely had the short end... especially the RN since he was supposed to wait and report when all the spare crewmembers had bailed out of the hole the Nav left behind.
And Lord, were those seats uncomfortable after about the seventh hour! Your butt would suddenly feel like it was on fire and there was no way to ease it - and even the short training missions ran twelve or thirteen hours.
If it was a new build H and not a converted G then it’s not quite 50 years old and during that time much of that plane has been replaced/rebuilt.
If I’m left seat in a 20 year old craft, I’m spending extra time on my pre-flight inspection.
To the point that I’ll likely enlist crew participation in my own longer checklist.
Lot’s of control surface and long runs of wire and plumbing.
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