US B-52 bomber crash at California base kills all 8 aboard

WASHINGTON: A US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress crashed during takeoff at Edwards Air Force Base in California's Mojave Desert on Monday, killing all eight people on board.

Air Force Colonel James Hayes said the eight-engine bomber was on a routine test flight and went down on the runway shortly after becoming airborne. He said the mission was meant to support a radar modernisation programme and that the cause of the crash remained unknown and was under investigation.

Hayes told reporters the aircraft carried a mixed crew made up of government civilians, government contractors and uniformed military personnel. Boeing, the company that designed and built the aircraft, said two of its employees were among those killed. Air Force officials did not release the names of the dead, saying next of kin were still being informed.

A large column of black smoke was visible from the site soon after the crash. Video from the area, around 100 miles north of Los Angeles, showed a scorched section of desert terrain larger than a football field, with emergency vehicles moving around the perimeter. From a distance, no major pieces of wreckage could be clearly seen in the footage.

Hayes said the accident was quickly determined to have left no chance of survival.

"deemed to be unsurvivable."

He also said runway damage had forced the base to halt activity.

"we're grounding all operations at Edwards Air Force Base"

According to Hayes, the suspension was expected to remain in place through at least Tuesday, although operations outside the base were not being stopped.

Aircraft and base details

The aircraft involved belonged to the 412th Test Wing based at Edwards. Most B-52 bombers are stationed in North Dakota and Louisiana, and that only H-model B-52s remain in the US Air Force inventory.

The B-52 Stratofortress has long been a central part of the United States' crewed strategic bomber fleet. The long-range subsonic aircraft can carry up to 70,000 pounds of weapons and supplies, operate at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet and fly more than 8,000 miles without refuelling. It is capable of carrying a broad range of weapons, including cluster bombs, gravity bombs, precision-guided missiles and nuclear warheads.

Edwards Air Force Base, established in the 1930s around a dry lake bed, covers about 481 square miles in the Mojave desert and is the Air Force's largest airfield. The facility has been closely associated with major aviation milestones, including Chuck Yeager's 1947 Bell X-1 flight that broke the sound barrier, X-15 testing and the first NASA space shuttle landings.

Monday's crash was the first involving a B-52 Stratofortress since another aircraft of the same type crashed in Guam in May 2016. All seven people aboard that aircraft survived, according to the Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives.