Originally Posted by
Big Eric
Baloo51 & 52 flew a mission from Fairford yesterday over Europe and it was planned for them to return directly to Minot AFB after being topped up by tankers from Mildenhall. The tankers couldn't take off due to the wind being out of limits at Mildenhall so they had to burn off fuel for 2 hours near Gloucester at 10,000' to get under the maximum landing weight, during that time Baloo52 had a warning light come on to say that a hatch door wasn't shut properly. Both landed safely.
Thanks.
That would explain why the 7700 (or "770", as reported by most of the media) wasn't squawked until very late in the mission, in fact not long before it landed back at Fairford.
Could have been worse - according to
one news website, "The worry is that as the bombers normally carry immense armament loads (sic) if there was a crash it would completely devastate Gloucestershire and the surrounding areas".
