B52 in 'emergency alert' over Gloucestershire

[airsound]

Gloucestershire Live reporting this
https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/gloucester-news/b52-bomber-issues-emergency-alert-4551362

The report says "The US Air Force B-52 bomber transmitted a ‘squawk code 770" sic. Flightradar (below) says 7700. The report also talks about Minot air force base stating that there had been a 'general in flight emergency'. Flightradar earlier showed the orbits over Cheltenham, Gloucester and Tewkesbury taking place at 10,000ft.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1211x822/bal0052_79530622f0764b10f9c7ec50962c14e4dd8386bd.png
Flightradar24 coverage just after BAL0052 landed at Fairford

airsound

[GeeRam]

Just happened to be watching this live on ADS-B yesterday, as a mate had sent a photo through of the 4 of them passing over him in Wellingborough....

It was the last of the 4 to land that squawked 7700....one of the pair to spend an hour or so orbiting Gloucester, the previous 3 to land had all also done a run and break to land as well at Fairford, but the last one landed straight in, but it didn't start squawking 7700 until after it ended the orbits of Gloucester and had started its decent.

[Chris Kebab]

Trying to work out where the story is here - or is it just me?

[salad-dodger]

Trying to work out where the story is here - or is it just me?
No, there isn’t one.

[BirdmanBerry]

They were circling for more than an hour I'm sure, kept coming over our office, a pair together then one broke off and went low over our house as I got home just after 5.30pm.

Didn't I read they weren't squawking the emergency code and in fact the 'papers' got it wrong? GL is a cesspit of a local rag so wouldn't surprise me!

They have done these circuits in pairs before too a few weeks back. I just assumed they had too much fuel to land and therefore were burning it off?

[roger4]

The version on Fighter Control is that four of the six B-52 currently on deployment at Fairford went out on a mission over Poland yesterday. Two were due to return to Fairford, and the other two were scheduled to return to Minot direct from Poland. However their refueling tankers were out of crosswind limits (Mildenhall presumably) and couldn't launch, hence a late decision to return all four to Fairford. However the Minot-bound pair were overweight for landing and hence orbited Gloucester for an hour and a half burning off fuel. During this, one of the pair picked up a crew entry hatch warning light and declared an IFE and corresponding squawk of 7700. It landed safely and was met by the airfield rescue services.

Five of the six have departed today back to Minot, with yesterday's IFE aircraft the one left at Fairford for now.

[airsound]

salad-dodger, Kris Kebab
Actually, I think there is a story. How often do you find one, and sometimes two, B52s in a roughly 13nm orbit, at 10,000ft-ish over rural Gloucestershire - for about 1 hour and 20 minutes? Don't you think it would be interesting to hear what they were doing - particularly perhaps for the people they were overflying?

As far as the 7700 squawk goes, BirdmanBerry, you're correct - they were only squawking that for not long before landing, according to flightradar24.

airsound

[airsound]

Crossed with roger4 - thank you very much for that. Sounds very plausible.

airsound

[salad-dodger]

salad-dodger, Kris Kebab
Don't you think it would be interesting to hear what they were doing - particularly perhaps for the people they were overflying?

airsound
no

(extra letters to submit)

[57mm]

Orbiting their Fail-Safe points......😉

[BirdmanBerry]

salad-dodger, Kris Kebab
Actually, I think there is a story. How often do you find one, and sometimes two, B52s in a roughly 13nm orbit, at 10,000ft-ish over rural Gloucestershire - for about 1 hour and 20 minutes? Don't you think it would be interesting to hear what they were doing - particularly perhaps for the people they were overflying?

As far as the 7700 squawk goes, BirdmanBerry, you're correct - they were only squawking that for not long before landing, according to flightradar24.

airsound

However this isn't the first time they've done this orbit. As I say a few weeks back they did the same, one then broke off to head to Fairford and the other circled a little longer and then went too, assuming to give the first one time to land.

[Yarpy]

Perhaps they had engine trouble and had to land just using the remain seven . . .

[spitfirek5054]

Perhaps they had engine trouble and had to land just using the remain seven . . .
Not the dreaded 7 engine approach,having to to do an asymmetric approach and landing.

[Meester proach]

Not the dreaded 7 engine approach,having to to do an asymmetric approach and landing.


7 engine approach used to be scary, then they remembered they can move the gear in line with the assymetry...

[dead_pan]

There wasn't that much drama TBH. When it became apparent they'd have to return to Fairford the original plan was burn fuel by orbiting over the North Sea, then the Brize area, then finally over Gloucester. The frame which had the hatch problem was I believe the same one which had a pressurization issue earlier in the day. The crew did discuss with bomber ops about whether to declare an emergency but presumably decided between them to wait until they were within weight limits before doing so.

I believe the local press got wind of the fact two Buffs were orbiting for nigh on two hours over Gloucs, found out about the hatch issue and put 2 and 2 together to get 11. The Daily Fail then got hold of the story...

What was more interesting was the comms between the two crews as they mused whether they should land, refuel and change cabs in order to get back stateside, as was their original plan. They clearly weren't that enamoured about having to return to Fairford.

[sandiego89]

..... They clearly weren't that enamoured about having to return to Fairford.

That’s saying something if they would rather be at Minot rather than Fairford! :}

[Barksdale Boy]

Why not Minot?

[Wensleydale]

no

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Hint. Need less than 10 characters? Type a series of whatever you want (dots for example) for the extra characters and colour them white. I'm not sure if they appear when being quoted though, so keep it clean.

[West Coast]

Why not Minot?

Freezins the reason

[msbbarratt]

<snip>
During this, one of the pair picked up a crew entry hatch warning light and declared an IFE and corresponding squawk of 7700. It landed safely and was met by the airfield rescue services.
</snip>

It's going to be quite interesting to see how well the B52s last. I know they're all pretty old already, and look to be carrying on indefinitely, but as they age then all sorts of things could crop up. There must be quite a lot of things on an aircraft that the original designers didn't necessarily determine a service life for because they were, so they thought, over engineered. But after 25, 50, 75 years of use, perhaps some of these things will start becoming a significant availability nuissance. I'm sure they've got a good grip on the aging of the airframe structure and everything to do with safe flight, but there's bound to be various items that could just wear out and hinder mission readiness.

Time will tell. Though these days efficiently dealing with problems like this is much easier than previously. The classic car world has been revolutionised by 3D laser scanners, 3D printing, CNC machining, etc, which has made parts reproduction very easy.

Any reports for someone finding a B52 crew entry hatch in their back garden?

(Apologies for the thread drift)

[BirdmanBerry]

There wasn't that much drama TBH. When it became apparent they'd have to return to Fairford the original plan was burn fuel by orbiting over the North Sea, then the Brize area, then finally over Gloucester. The frame which had the hatch problem was I believe the same one which had a pressurization issue earlier in the day. The crew did discuss with bomber ops about whether to declare an emergency but presumably decided between them to wait until they were within weight limits before doing so.

I believe the local press got wind of the fact two Buffs were orbiting for nigh on two hours over Gloucs, found out about the hatch issue and put 2 and 2 together to get 11. The Daily Fail then got hold of the story...

What was more interesting was the comms between the two crews as they mused whether they should land, refuel and change cabs in order to get back stateside, as was their original plan. They clearly weren't that enamoured about having to return to Fairford.

Gloucestershire Live will pick up any non story these days, usually with clickbait titles like "You'll never believe why these American bombers were circling for hours" or some other tripe.

[safetypee]

'Any reports for someone finding a B52 crew entry hatch in their back garden?'

DH on GCHQ; at the start of the North bound leg of the orbits !

[dead_pan]

That’s saying something if they would rather be at Minot rather than Fairford! :}

I guess even the bright lights of that throbbing metropolis that is Fairford must eventually lose its appeal over time.

[dead_pan]

Any reports for someone finding a B52 crew entry hatch in their back garden?

Currently on eBay, bid running at 50 quid (only joking!)

I'd buy it if is was. Nice little memento.

[Stu666]

Wonder why the Minot-bound aircraft didn't just knock Poland on the head and head straight to Minot? Would they have needed tanking across the pond?

[roger4]

[QUOTE]Wonder why the Minot-bound aircraft didn't just knock Poland on the head and head straight to Minot? Would they have needed tanking across the pond?[/QUOTE

Because the lack of tanker problem occurred after the planned Fairford - Poland and back part of the mission. And hence yes, they needed refueling before return to Minot as a result of the fuel burn during the Poland mission.

[Stu666]

[QUOTE]Wonder why the Minot-bound aircraft didn't just knock Poland on the head and head straight to Minot? Would they have needed tanking across the pond?[/QUOTE

Because the lack of tanker problem occurred after the planned Fairford - Poland and back part of the mission. And hence yes, they needed refueling before return to Minot as a result of the fuel burn during the Poland mission.

Thanks roger4, makes sense.

[swh]

. How often do you find one, and sometimes two, B52s in a roughly 13nm orbit, at 10,000ft-ish over rural Gloucestershire - for about 1 hour and 20 minutes? Don't you think it would be interesting to hear what they were doing - particularly perhaps for the people they were overflying?



its just practice run for doing the same sort of display over Beijing, just a slightly longer transit to the hold.

[plans123]

Gloucestershire Live will pick up any non story these days, usually with clickbait titles like "You'll never believe why these American bombers were circling for hours" or some other tripe.

You said it... two of their Journo’s (a term used VERY loosely) cream their pants any time anything flies into Fairford, Kemble or an A400M flies overhead and they write numerous news articles (another term used VERY loosely) about it.

This is the paper that wrote a ‘news article’ because a plane carrying the Pope flew over the county......