Eight people were killed after a US Air Force B-52 bomber crashed after takeoff at Edwards Air Force base in California.
“We lost eight great Americans,” James Hayes, the deputy commander at Edwards Air Force base, said at a news conference.
Aerial footage showed virtually nothing left of the aircraft that went down around 11:20 a.m. local time (18:20 GMT), the base said.
The military base has launched an interim safety board to gather initial facts that then lead to a safety investigation. The entire process could take up to six months, Hayes said.
Emergency crews respond immediately after aircraft goes down
Emergency crews responded immediately after the crash but the air base said in an earlier social media post that initial indications were that “the crash was not survivable.”
The entire airfield was closed and all inbound flights were diverted after the aircraft went down at the base.
The crew onboard were engaged in routine test mission before the disaster.
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
Edwards Air Force Base is about 100 miles (161 kilometers) north of Los Angeles and is home to a large portion of the Air Force’s aircraft’s secretive test efforts.
What’s a B-52 bomber?
The aircraft that went down was a Boeing B-52 bomber, officially known as the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress.
The jets, typically crewed by five people, entered service in 1995.
The B-52 was engineered to provide the US with a significant advantage in strategic nuclear capabilities during the Cold War, particularly against the Soviet Union, which at the time did not possess an intercontinental bomber.
Designed to carry both conventional and nuclear weapons, it has been used in conflicts ranging from the Vietnam War to recent operations in the Middle East.
Edited by: Wesley Dockery
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