B1-b crashes in montana

reply to post by DeadSeraph


The capsule was too heavy to use on the B, as it would have kept them from going supersonic, with all the other features, such as four generators, and the like. So they went to individual seats instead.

As the post above said, they have panels over each seat location that blow first. They used to allow Instructor Pilots to ride in a seat that was just behind the throttle quadrant, and between the pilots and the SOs, but it wasn't an ejection seat, and it came back to bite them when an IP was killed in a B-1 crash when he couldn't climb out in time. Ever since then, they have declared that anyone flying on a B-1 has to be in an ejection seat.

If you look at this picture, and zoom it in, you an see the panels. If you look on either side of the knifeblade antenna that's centered on the fuselage, behind the canopy, before the flat round antenna, you can see two of the panels that will come off for the seats. Those are the panels for the SOs. The ones for the pilots are where the two upper windscreens are, right above their seats.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Thanks!

reply to post by minkmouse


Yeah, I'm just surprised they got the designation that close, and didn't call it something else. Heh!

From the looks of it, the aircraft went straight in. The debris field is pretty tight, with a smaller debris field very close to the main field. The secondary burn area could be where the seats landed, depending on when the crew got out.

www.argusleader.com...

Wonder the expedited maintenance has anything to do with it.

Although maintaining the B-1 is a challenging job, members of the shop not only keep Ellsworth's B-1 fleet healthy, but teach young Airmen new tasks. The knowledge they add to Airmen's toolbox helps them troubleshoot and fix problems at a quicker pace.

"We're able to share our experience to help them complete aircraft maintenance and train other Air Force members," said Anderson.

With so many aircraft to maintain, the CFT shop's pool of knowledge creates an environment that allows vital maintenance to be performed in a fraction of the time.

"There's no down time," said Brown. "You don't have to wait on one specific career field to accomplish a task. They may be saturated with other work, whereas we have a pool of people who can accomplish the task from start to finish."

SOURCE

reply to post by hp1229


I said in the other thread that I'm willing to bet that sequestration had a role in this. Ellsworth operates the 34th and 37th Bomb Squadrons. The 37th stood down in mid-April, and the 34th when they returned from Guam and points overseas.

When the aircraft sit for that long, they require a Functional Check Flight before they can be returned to flying status. An FCF does everything up to and including shutting the engines down in flight (one at a time for a multiengine), and restarting them (at least that is what I was told by some guys that did them). The problem is that things tend to break that you don't always find on the ground, or on one flight. It may be that sitting for two months wore something to the point that when they started to push the aircraft, to regain their currency, it broke.

This was a hell of an accident. It was much more violent than I thought it was going to turn out being, and the crew was damn lucky to get out.

Aircraft 85-0091 was the Mishap Aircraft.

From the AIB report:

On August 19, 2013, at approximate 0916 local, B-1B tail number 85-0091 impacted the ground near Broadus Montana. The four crew members ejected safely, and suffered non-life threatening injuries.

The Mishap Aircraft (MA) departed Ellsworth AFB at approximately 0857 local. Following take-off, Mishap Pilot 2 (MP2) leveled the aircraft off at approximately 20,000 feet. At the time the Mishap Crewmembers (MC) completed a system check of the aircraft. MP2 reduced the throttles to idle, and began a decent to 10,000 feet, sweeping the wings from the forward to aft position. During the sweep the MA developed an undetectable fuel leak in the 4.5 inch main fuel line in the left overwing fairing. Approximately 7,000 pounds of fuel leaked, before the fuel contacted an exposed hot precooler duct.

The fuel then exploded, blowing the left overwing fairing off the aircraft. The ignited fuel streamed over the left wing, where it heated one of the fuel tanks, and caused an explosion in the tank. This detonation propagated through the fuel vent system that connects the fuel tanks, and led to a loss of power in the crew compartment.

After attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful, MP1 ordered the crew to eject. After ejection the fuselage split in two, and impacted the ground.

The Board found that the cause was the undetectable fuel leak, caused when the fold down baffle separated and pinched the fuel line, opening a hole in it. It's unclear why the baffle separated however.