B-1 Down in Indian Ocean

[Man-on-the-fence]

CNN) -- The Pentagon said Wednesday that a U.S. B-1 bomber crashed in the Indian Ocean and that a rescue mission was under way.

A U.S. Air Force KC-10 is orbiting the crash site and has the rescue strobe in sight and voice communications with at least one crew member. B-1 bombers carry a crew of four and have the capability for all crew members to eject in the event of a problem.

"We are focused on getting proper assets to find the crew and rescue them," said Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said the bomber went down en route to Diego Garcia, an island where some U.S. warplanes involved in the Afghan air campaign are based.

My thoughts are with the crew, I really hope they all got out safely.

[Man-on-the-fence]

CNN now say all four crew reported safe, no word on injuries.

Heres hoping. Heroes all of 'em

[ 12 December 2001: Message edited by: Man-on-the-fence ]

[ORAC]

CNN:

A United States B-1 bomber has crashed into the Indian Ocean with all four crew members being rescued.

The $140m swing-wing aircraft is thought to have gone down approximately 30 miles (48 kms) north of Diego Garcia.

At least one survivor was spotted and spoken to by the crew of a US KC-10 plane circling over the crash site before all four were pulled to safety.

[McD]

Looks like everyone may have some bruises and cuts, but are otherwise in reasonably good shape.

Click Here for an updated story on MSNBC.com (http://www.msnbc.com/news/671543.asp)

[Roadtrip]

Lots of bad info in the above posts.

The aircraft was outbound from Diego Garcia about 100nm & 15,000 feet when it suffered an engine failure/fire of some sort. The crew turned back to RTB and made it to 30nm point from the base, when control was lost, probably due to burned through hydraulics. The crew was in the water about 2 hours - nice warm water, & no sharks, according to the aircraft commander. Rescue crews did a great job. Evidently picked up by a US destroyer in the area.

It's doubtful that they'd be refueling that soon after takeoff. A KC-10 evidently did provide rescue CAP until dedicated rescue assets could get in the area. In any case, it was NOT a refueling mishap.

Another thing - the B-1 cost about $275 million (1986 dollars), not $140 million.

File under heading of "s**t happens."

[ORAC]

I blame the press. Everyone knows you should never, never say how well everything is going:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-000098646dec12.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dfrontpage

ps. I seem to recall that the B1/B52 loss rate is running at approximately 200% the rate required to to get through to the planned bomber replacement date of 2038.

If the future really is out of area at these types of ranges maybe the US ought to really think about reopening the B2 line and everyone start thinking about AAR fleets. (including the USN, the RAF fleet may not be there much longer to help them out).

[ 13 December 2001: Message edited by: ORAC ]

[Man-on-the-fence]

Roadtrip

Probably true about bad info. But the important thing is that they are safe. C'nest pas??

[Stagnation Point]

If they were carrying a full bomb load then they may not have been fully fueled when they daparted and had planned to suck some gas once airborne. Keeps the Take Off weight down.

[newswatcher]

At time Pentagon released news, they stated that it was not possible to say whether the aircraft was taking-off or landing. Since then, a transcript has been published of interview between journalists and commanders of B1, K10 and USS Russell, and others, timed 16:20hrs EST. In this the commander of the B1, states he had "multiple aircraft malfunctions which rendered the aircraft uncontrollable". He also refuses to state whether he was arriving or leaving.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2001/t12122001_t1212b1.html

[Tricky Woo]

Very glad the B1 bomber chaps are ok.

You'd have thought that $300 million would buy something a bit more robust. Always thought bombers were supposed to be dead 'ard in case of combat damage: lots of engines, redundancy built into the systems, etc, etc. Can't have 'em dropping out of the sky just because the navigator drops a pencil on something fragile or whatever.

Still, it's nice to hear that the cousins have finally found something useful to do with 'em.

Before someone tells me to wait for the enquiry: sod off, 'cos anything coming out of any enquiry is unlikely to be made public for yonks.

TW

[The Scarlet Pimpernel]

You're absolutely right Tricky, mate. We only spent $40million on a bomber that does exactly the same thing.......as this B1! ;)

[tony draper]

B-1, Best looking flying machine out there, ;)
Err, since the Vulcan

[Roadtrip]

Vulcan. Great machine. Ahead of its time, in its time.

B1 is robust, but an uncontrolled engine fire in any airplane that doesn't have pod mounted engines is usually catastrophic. Pod mounting the engines seriously degrades performance.

A great site for getting fairly accurate unclassified info on weapons systems is:
www.fas.org/man/index.html (http://www.fas.org/man/index.html)

The B-1 page is:
www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/b-1b.htm (http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/b-1b.htm)

[How Low...?]

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/b1_fire.jpg

[Roadtrip]

A hot brake and 4000PSI of 4606 hydraulic fluid spraying it is pretty spectacular.

[ 21 December 2001: Message edited by: Roadtrip ]</p>