Posted on 01/05/2024 7:09:54 AM PST by george76
A B-1 Lancer bomber crash landed in South Dakota on Thursday, forcing the entire crew to eject during a training mission.
The crash landing took place at 5:50 p.m. at Ellsworth Air Force Base during a training exercise. The 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth said that the accident happened while the plane was “attempting to land on the installation. At the time of the accident, it was on a training mission. There were four aircrew on board. All four ejected safely.”
There were reportedly poor winter weather conditions at the time of the crash, which is still being investigated by an officer board.
B-1 bombers have been in use since the 1980s with about 60 being used by Dyess Air Force Base in Texas and Ellsworth Air Force Base,
...
The B-1B holds almost 50 world records for speed, payload, range, and time of climb in its class. The National Aeronautic Association recognized the B-1B for completing one of the 10 most memorable record flights for 1994. The most recent records were made official in 2004,” the Air Force says.
The aircraft was used extensively in both Iraq and Afghanistan during the early 2000s.
During the first six months of Operation Enduring Freedom, eight B-1s dropped nearly 40 percent of the total tonnage delivered by coalition air forces. This included nearly 3,900 JDAMs, or 67 percent of the total. In Operation Iraqi Freedom, the aircraft flew less than 1 percent of the combat missions while delivering 43 percent of the JDAMs used.
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Earlier this year, the Air Force lost track of an F-35 in South Carolina after the pilot ejected. Military officials had to ask for the public’s help finding the plane and describing the incident as a “mishap.” Debris from the plane was later located in Williamsburg County after hours of searching.
The plane, which cost about $100 million, kept going for about 60 miles after the pilot ejected. A spokesperson for Joint Base Charleston said the F-35B Lightning II jet from the Marine Attack Training Squadron was placed on autopilot before the pilot ejected.
I made similar mistake in my first reading of article. The “60 miles” refers to a different event with a different pilot and different aircraft in 2023.
**60 miles for a jet at usual speed would be about 40 seconds or so. 600 mph == 10 miles in 1 minute**
Wouldn’t 10 miles per minute mean that 60 miles would take 6 minutes?
The good news here is that ACES II ejection seats worked and the crew survived. They get to go home tonight to their families.
Those aircrew were very, very lucky. Ejecting is better than crashing, but still an extremely hazardous thing to do. Even if you live, your body can still suffer severe damage.
Those aircrew were very, very lucky. Ejecting is better than crashing, but still an extremely hazardous thing to do. Even if you live, your body can still suffer severe damage.
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ACES II seat. You need to ride the rocket.
First the canopy goes.
Then a canon goes off to kick the seat out of the cockpit. Yeah, it’s a cannon. The seat is the projectile.
Then there’s about a six-foot cable connected between the cockpit floor and the firing pin on the rocket motor. The rocket has 6,000 pounds of thrust.
That’s a Hard Ride.
Worked F15s and F16s, both had the seat. Got lots of briefings.
All crashes are landings, not all landings are crashes.
Wouldn’t that be more like six minutes???
Diversity???
Weather conditions were freezing with very poor visibility. There have been a lot of Canadian geese flying around the base over the past few days, a bird strike seems plausible.
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They ejected after the crash?
Who writes the headlines these days? Chimps on acid?
Photo of downed aircraft at this link..
Air traffic over/from the base is locked down until January 19th.
Things you never want to hear at that point: Eject...Eject..Ej(boom).
Anything in the air can easily become an unguided projectile. This turned out as good as can be expected.
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