Anyone else hear about this?

ELLSWORTH AIR FORCE BASE, BOX ELDER, S.D. (KELO) — An Air Force B-1B Lancer crashed at 5:50 p.m. (MDT) Thursday during a training mission while attempting to land on the installation.

Four aircrew were on board. All four ejected safely according to the 28th Bomb Wing Public Affairs Office.


This is a developing story and additional details will be provided as they become available.

https://www.keloland.com/news/...-air-force-base/amp/

Hate to hear this. Now more than ever, we need more B1s, not less.

Training mission, Ice/fog conditions, witness stated aircraft on fire on approach. Tail number 85-0085

Bummer, hate to lose a B1B. Glad all crew members made it out safe.

Good to hear that the entire crew ejected safely. Guess that's one Lancer that got to permanently retire a little earlier than planned.

As a Crew Chief and Flying Crew Member, aircraft are expendable, people are not, ever.

All the nickels in the grass, every tax dollar spent, and millions of minutes of maintenance applied, all that mattered was getting the aircrew trough his mission, across the threshold of his domicile, to kiss his dog and pet his wife, (or whatever other freaky thing they had going on, we ain't judging...) and sleep peacefully in his bed.

We did it because it needed didding.

I got to go inside a B1 in 92-93 time frame. We (EOD) responded to an F-16 with a hung bomb. When we finished with that we saw the B1 on the flighlibd and went to check it out. I was amazed at how low tech the cockpit looked. I'd like to witness an ejection from those.

A few more details:


https://www.thedrive.com/the-w...-afb-in-south-dakota

Unfortunate to lose another one. Great airplane.

My four years at GFAFB as a B-1B BOASS are always fondly remembered.

I still have some friends at Ellsworth.

https://theatlasnews.co/breaki...th-afb-south-dakota/

UPDATE 10:15 a.m. — The 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth Air Force Base released additional information about the conditions of the four crew members who ejected from the B-1B Lancer that crashed Thursday evening. Three of the crew were treated on base for minor injuries and released. The fourth crew member is being treated at a local hospital for non-life threatening injuries.

Wing Commander Col. Derek Oakley said, "Our thoughts and prayers are with the aircrew and their families as they recover from this event. It is important that we support each other as we work to learn more about what occurred.”

Since I don't see any landing gear laying around, I get the sense my boys forgot a step in their landing procedures.

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
As a Crew Chief and Flying Crew Member, aircraft are expendable, people are not, ever.

As an aviator I couldn't agree more!


Dense fog is no joke when it comes to landing. On our WestPac pump in '92 we had a 4-ship doing an early morning practice strike out of Iwakuni to a target in Korea and landing at Osan. A thick blanket of sea fog had rolled in off the Yellow Sea and covered all of western Korea by the time we finished our attack.

GCA reported conditions at 200' and 1/2 mile viz - just at minimums for single seat aircraft so we broke up for individual precision approaches into Osan AFB.

I can speak for the other 3 aircraft, but I broke out of the fog at 60' slightly left of the runway. If I'd been in a conventional jet I'd have never been able to land, but with the Harrier I was able to keep feeding in the nozzles to go slower and slower as I approached the missed approach point. A few seconds after that point I caught sight of the runway with a forward speed of approx. 60 knots.

The BONE is a great aircraft. Hate that they lost one but glad the crew got out OK. Dense fog is no joke when it comes to landing.

More pictures but with more daylight

quote:

Originally posted by mojojojo:

GCA reported conditions at 200' and 1/2 mile viz - just at minimums for single seat aircraft

200 & 1/2 is typical min for Category I precision approach. No matter how many times I've done it in the simulator, it is a sphincter-puckering experience when hand flying (not coupled to autopilot) in real life.

You said that you had your Harrier slowed to 60 kts; I typically flew approaches in the V-Tail at 105, so if I did not have visual with runway environment at Decision Height, I had maybe 15 to 20 seconds to initiate the Missed Approach Procedure and get out of Dodge, prior to ground contact. Noise abatement was my primary concern (I hate the sound of an airplane hitting a solid object).

In my opinion, the Bone is the most beautiful large aircraft ever built. And the F-16 is the small aircraft counterpart. They were, and are, just exquisite.

As someone who has never seen the inside of one of those other than on video looking out the back how hard is it for the pilot and copilot to bail out of one of those?

All four crewmen are ejected at the same time. Usually the flight commander triggers this. They pull 12 Gs during the ejection with the force aligned with their spines.

I found this to be interesting. You might too. At the end of the video one of the pilots talk.


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quote:

Originally posted by bald1:
All four crewmen are ejected at the same time. Usually the flight commander triggers this. They pull 12 Gs during the ejection with the force aligned with their spines.

The B-1 uses ACES II seats. There are several "options" available as to "command select or individual select' but the system still "manages" the sequence of firing each of the four seats, to prevent any "conflict" so no seats will fire in a situation that likely result in seats firing where any "collision" (conflict) will occur.

There are also three distinct "Modes" where drogue chutes deploy, Mode 1 0-250 kts, low speed, low altitude, where the aircrew chute deploys immediately and seat/man separation is instant, Mode 2 intermediate airspeed (above 250 kts) where the drogue chute deploys to stabilize and then the aircrew chute deploys and seat/man separation occurs, Mode 3 high altitude and high speed, where the drogue chute deploys to stabilize the seat, and an altimeter will monitor descent and deploy main chute and man/seat separation when altitude is in optimal realm (around 11,000 feet).

(I spent a great deal of time learning and dealing with the Martin-Baker Mk. H-7, Mk16 the ACES II and initiation/sequence operation/function/. I spent days where I encountered/inspected/ensured seat operations multiple times a day for many years, as well as having sat in those seats and aware of every function of several dozen components.)

There are a great number of components that must properly function, with great precision and timing, to ensure successful result and outcome for aircrew members.

It is not "magic", nor always successful. When it is, we are most grateful, and count the blessings. When it doesn't, we never forget what that means, even if we never talk about it.

Anyone involved in flight ops and/or maintenance is deeply affected anytime an ejection sequence occurs.