So far, no evidence of a MANPAD attack; but it is rather odd that we’ve lost three aircraft in that region over the past week; a civilian 747 cargo jet that went down at Bagram (load shifted on takeoff, sending the aircraft into a stall); an RC-12 recce bird that went down in southern Afghanistan, and more recently, the KC-135.
The Stratotanker has been around forever, and it’s a very reliable platform—almost no history of them simply blowing up in mid-air. At first glace, it sounds a bit like a KC-135 that exploded while descending in to Howard AFB, Panama back in the 1980s. It was eventually determined that the crew left a pump running in an empty fuel tank after their in-flight refueling operation was complete. The pump overheated and ignited fuel vapors that remained in the tank. However, fixes were supposedly implemented to prevent that from happening again.
Spark in the center fuel tank.
The aircraft 63-7983 on June 17,1986. from Grissom AFB,IN. The aircraft came in too hard. Hit the runway at over 7g at which point the #3 engine separated from the wing, tearing off behind the fuel shutoff. Aircrew tried to take it airborne per their training but rapidly lost hydraulics and a flap. It crashed in the middle of military (Navy?) housing. I was one of the ground crew.