A B-52 bomber crashed shortly after takeoff Monday morning at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California's Mojave Desert, and the eight people aboard are believed to have died, the U.S. Air Force reported.
"Initial indications are that the crash was not survivable," the Edwards Air Force Base, located north of Los Angeles, stated on social media. The cause of the crash is under investigation, officials said.
No information about the crew has been released, but aerial footage showed virtually nothing left of the aircraft. Emergency crews responded after the bomber went down around 11:20 a.m. Black smoke billowed from a large area of charred desert near what appeared to be a runway, with emergency vehicles nearby. The military has not disclosed whether the bomber was carrying weapons.
The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is a long-range bomber that entered service in 1955. Designed to carry both conventional and nuclear weapons, it has been used in conflicts involving the U.S. military from Vietnam to Iran.
By Monday afternoon, the airfield remained closed, and all inbound aircraft were being diverted. Non-commercial visitor passes for the base were suspended "to allow the installation to focus entirely on emergency response operations," officials said in a statement.
Edwards Air Force Base is home to a large portion of the U.S. Air Force's aircraft test and development efforts and is about 100 miles (161 km) north of Los Angeles. The 412th Test Wing, which runs the base, conducts developmental testing of all Air Force aircraft, weapons systems, software, and components before purchase and throughout their lifespan.
The vast desert base is also where Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager reached Mach 1.05 and broke the sound barrier in 1947.
The way the B-52 crashed so quickly after takeoff without gaining much altitude or distance leads aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti to suspect a flight control malfunction. However, it is too soon to determine what might have caused the control problem.
Possible causes include controls rigged incorrectly after maintenance, a catastrophic engine problem, or a failure of a piece of equipment being tested, Guzzetti said.
"I think it was definitely a controllability issue. Now, whether that was tied to an engine failure, a flight control failure, or some new testing device failure, I'm not sure," said Guzzetti, who previously investigated crashes for the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.
Although the Air Force has been flying B-52 bombers for more than 70 years, testing new equipment on a plane can create new challenges.
"A flight test is always riskier than normal operations, so that's why you have specially trained test pilots, and you should have other safety protocols," Guzzetti added.
