B-52 crash... no survivors

[gismo]

I just heard about a B52 Stratofortress that crashed last Monday near Guam. Apparently it was flying as part of some celebration and crashed taking the lives of all on board. I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the national news lately but I'm still surprised I missed this. Did someone already post about it? Searching for B52 or B-52 turned up nothing.

http://www.newser.com/story/33197.html

 

[TangoWhiskey]

I saw it a couple days ago, and also looked here, but figured if nobody was posting anything, maybe "silence" was what was being silently requested.

Certainly an old fleet... any ideas what the retirement plan for it is?

 

[AWACSEng]

When I still crewed the BUFF, the retirement plan was to keep it in service untill 2040. Recent budget and political developments have created plans to cut the fleet roughly in half and keep the remaining jets in the inventory untill 2030-40ish. The sad part of this mishap, aside from the loss of life, is we will likely never know what happened. The B-52 has no CVR/DFDR and the waters off of Guam are likely too deep for wreckage recovery.

 

[gismo]

When I still crewed the BUFF, the retirement plan was to keep it in service untill 2040. Recent budget and political developments have created plans to cut the fleet roughly in half and keep the remaining jets in the inventory untill 2030-40ish. The sad part of this mishap, aside from the loss of life, is we will likely never know what happened. The B-52 has no CVR/DFDR and the waters off of Guam are likely too deep for wreckage recovery.

Given that this was a "demonstration flight", unless the mishap occurred well away from the viewers there ought to be plenty of witnesses for whatever that's worth and there might be some good videos. The lack of eyewitness accounts and/or video on the news feeds might indicate that even this bit of data is lacking though.

I'm surprised that the Air Force doesn't have FDRs in these planes. Any idea why?

 

[TangoWhiskey]

My understanding is that the "demonstration flight" or "fly by" was to be later in the day / flight... so there may not have been any witnesses.

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123107524

The aircraft was reported missing at approximately 9:45 a.m. Monday. The bomber was flying a training mission and was scheduled to perform a flyover celebrating Guam's Liberation Day. There were no weapons or munitions aboard the aircraft. The B-52 was deployed here from Barksdale AFB, La., as part of the DOD's continuous bomber presence mission in the Pacific.

The lost men have been named.

 

[gprellwitz]

My understanding is that the "demonstration flight" or "fly by" was to be later in the day / flight... so there may not have been any witnesses.

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123107524



The lost men have been named.

On-scene in a 900-square mile search area are crews with two U.S. Coast Guard vessels and the USS John McCain, an Arleigh Burke class destroyer.

That's a large area to search. My condolences to those left behind.

And I didn't know that John McCain was officially a destroyer. For some reason I presumed they had a rule similar to the post office, whereby they wouldn't name a ship after a living person.

 

[GigG601XL]

My condolences to the crews family as well.

As far as Navy ships are concerned the R. Reagan died 2004 yet the CVN-76 USS Ronald Reagan was Commissioned in 2003. The next CVN will be the George H.W. Bush CVN 77.

That's a large area to search. My condolences to those left behind.

And I didn't know that John McCain was officially a destroyer. For some reason I presumed they had a rule similar to the post office, whereby they wouldn't name a ship after a living person.

 

[dmccormack]

That's a large area to search. My condolences to those left behind.

And I didn't know that John McCain was officially a destroyer. For some reason I presumed they had a rule similar to the post office, whereby they wouldn't name a ship after a living person.

The USS John S. McCain is named after the Admiral.

The Senator and Candidate is his son.

 

[wanttaja]

I'm surprised that the Air Force doesn't have FDRs in these planes. Any idea why?

Probably security. It must be assumed that an adversary might recover such an FDR, and might be able to obtain data that the Air Force would probably prefer they not have.

Ron Wanttaja

 

[KennyFlys]

Probably security. It must be assumed that an adversary might recover such an FDR, and might be able to obtain data that the Air Force would probably prefer they not have.

Ron Wanttaja

That can't be any worse than the two-inch tape decks on the S-3 Vikings. It recorded FLIR and sonabouy data. I believe it also recorded radar data but that was so long ago, I cannot be sure. The main difference is these tape decks were not sealed as tight and certainly not waterproof or capable of sustaining the impact FDRs and CVRs are capable of.

 

[gprellwitz]

My condolences to the crews family as well.

As far as Navy ships are concerned the R. Reagan died 2004 yet the CVN-76 USS Ronald Reagan was Commissioned in 2003. The next CVN will be the George H.W. Bush CVN 77.

The USS John S. McCain is named after the Admiral.

The Senator and Candidate is his son.

Ah, thanks!

Probably security. It must be assumed that an adversary might recover such an FDR, and might be able to obtain data that the Air Force would probably prefer they not have.

Ron Wanttaja

That's what I was thinking as well.

 

[Bob Noel]

I'm surprised that the Air Force doesn't have FDRs in these planes. Any idea why?

It is incredibly expensive to retrofit FDRs on older aircraft, especially
those with lots of analog controls. Consider what it would cost to
develop control surface sensors for all the different control surfaces
on the B-52... and not many commercial FDRs out there could handle
the parameters from 8 engines...

 

[2256Q]

The bottom line is simply that military aircraft are extremely high performance machines. For example, when you walk up to a B-52, you would never think that monster was capable of aerobatics. But it is able to perform limited aerobatic maneuvers. Military aircraft are capable of going to limits that civilian pilots only dream of and, as such rank among the most dangerous machines built. The pilots who fly those machines are well aware of the fact and hope the ejection seat(s) will work properly, just in case it gets to be their day in the barrel.

 

[AWACSEng]

Probably no witnesses due to the crash site being approx. 25nm offshore. As to the CVR/FDR topic, none installed or designed originally because of the BUFF's designed mission (ie one way trips to the USSR). So whoever said security wins. Many other A/C, the E-3 being one of them, have CVR/DFDRs.

 

[dmccormack]

Probably no witnesses due to the crash site being approx. 25nm offshore. As to the CVR/FDR topic, none installed or designed originally because of the BUFF's designed mission (ie one way trips to the USSR). So whoever said security wins. Many other A/C, the E-3 being one of them, have CVR/DFDRs.

Well, the crews planed on a return trip! I remember the silly processions we used to do with Trailers full of dummy Nukes from Griffiss AFB to Syracuse practicing for the reloading when the bombers returned.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!!

 

[wanttaja]

That can't be any worse than the two-inch tape decks on the S-3 Vikings.

I'm just guessing that an S-3 didn't carry nukes. You can probably guess that the powers what be didn't want to take any chances of a CVR recording a nuclear-weapons checklist....

Ron Wanttaja

 

[KennyFlys]

I'm just guessing that an S-3 didn't carry nukes. You can probably guess that the powers what be didn't want to take any chances of a CVR recording a nuclear-weapons checklist....

Ron Wanttaja

Actually, it could... three different versions that I knew of and all could be mounted in the bomb bay, hidden from ground observation. That was where I first saw how mean a Marine could get if a passing sailor still got too close to us after one warning.

Nope, no CVR and no FDR on the Viking. The data deck it had would likely not survive impact on a hard crash. The top of the case was built from honeycomb material, only the other sides were a more stiff, aluminum material.