How to stuff up a $285M Military Aircraft...

[River]

:black_eye: Although this happened last year, now that the err... inquiry has finished reckon these pictures may show you what can happen when one has a collective crew 'brain-fade'...

 

At about 10 p.m. local time on May 8, 2006, a 7th Bomb Wing B-1B Lancer based at Dyess AFB, Texas, made a wheels-up landing on runway 31 at Diego Garcia, skidding 7,500 feet down the runway.

 

The aircraft was landing at the end of an 11 hour ferry mission that started at Andersen AFB, Guam.

 

During the landing, the B-1B caught fire and emergency crews extinguished the flames. The four-person aircrew escaped from the plane through the overhead escape hatch.

 

The aircraft was finally removed from the runway 4 days later.

 

The Air Force Accident Investigation concluded the pilots forgot to lower the landing gear. The USAF estimated the damage to the B-1B at $7.9 million, and the damage to the runway at $14,025. For those who have never seen a $285,000,000.00 B-1 bomber on the deck without wheels, here it is:

 

[ATTACH]1617[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]1618[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]1619[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]1620[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]1621[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]1622[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]1623[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ben Longden]

And I take it as read, the crew are now flying Hercs in Alaska?

 

Ben

 

 

[Ultralights]

what happened to the Gear warning buzzers?

 

even on the deck it still the meanest looking bomber ever made!

 

 

[Guest Tristo]

spose they are paying it off

 

$10 a week out of their wage

 

 

[PaulN]

Hi Tristo,

 

I guess that's one way of securing a long lasting career .

 

Paul

 

 

[Guest flying high]

you would think that in this modern era this sort of accident wouldn't happen any more such a waste of money but hey the usa is always wasting money anybody check out the doco on the Iraq war reconstruction lately and the billions that is lost or un accounted for

 

 

[Deskpilot]

Hey Ben, just catching up with this discussion and I see your avatar in motion for the first time. Neat mate, neat.

 

 

[Dieselten]

Only 14 Grand's worth of damage to the runway? They weren't trying...or is it that they're just not building aircraft as tough as they used to.

 

Actually, as accidents go this is a cheap accident. When they spud-in a B2 Spirit bomber (and theyhave), the US taxpayer loses 2 billion US Dollars...yes, 2 billion...basically because Northrop blew out the building cost of the B2 so much the US government cut back on the number of aircraft to the point where each unit was a shade of 2 billion. ("Stealth" as Nortohrop builds it comes at a huge price)

 

Talk about gold-plated weapons systems, the cost of developing new fighter and bomber aircraft is outstripping the ability of the USA to actually afford to buy them.

 

Makes our 1 billion Aust Super Seasprite fiasco look like chickenfeed. Perhaps the Super Hornet program will be a bigger fiasco, topped only by the F35 fiasco when it finally arrives. Mind you, the Defence Material Organisation could turn a program to buy ten sets of bows and arrows for the ADF into a multi-million dollar fiasco. It's what they do!

 

 

[Bob1957]

well how odd, even a cessna 210 has a warning buzzer for the gear if you pull back the power for landing, unless of course its been disconected as it annoys you? lol they should have remembered there checks ie bum fish.

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

They didn't show the damage to the bottom of the engine nacelles did they ? big dollars there I bet.

 

 

[gofastclint]

I feel sorry for the crew, to believe that they didn't lower the landing gear is bull, how many crew fly these things and they all forgot and the computer didn't let them know on approach?

 

Governments always pass the buck to the people doing the hard yards.

 

Venezuelan airspace and a SAM? Now that's what I'd believe, Especially with all the USAF aircraft activity happening in Chile.

 

Victor Chavez is building plenty of Kalashnikov factories and arming everyone in Venezuela for a reason.