B-1B crashed in South Dakota - 04 Jan 24 - Crew ejected

[IanH755]

Hi all,

The US lost one of its limited number of operational B-1B bombers yesterday with a crash at Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota during a landing attempt in dense freezing fog with all 4 crew ejected (nothing reported on their condition that I can see).

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/b-1b-crashes...

https://apnews.com/article/b1-crash-air-force-bomb...

https://abcnews.go.com/US/air-force-crew-ejects-sa...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/b-1-bomber-crash-land...

https://www.foxnews.com/us/b-1-bomber-crashes-trai...

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UPDATE - As an update after some searching (and most of this is unconfirmed yet but is on Social Media from various USAF folks), it's looking more likely that the aircraft had a one or more engines on fire on approach and that, rather than a crash as reported, it actually managed to land and the crew then ejected after landing due to the engine fire/fires.

Edited by IanH755 on Friday 5th January 11:27

[GliderRider]

Would a B-1B airfield have runway hydraulic arrester gear (RHAG)?
It would need to be pretty massive if they did, and even if they had one available, they wouldn't want to be in an aircraft on fire, if tangled up in one.

[46and2]

I remember reading that B-1Bs used to and maybe still do, suffer from a lot of fires on landing.

[IanH755]

A fairly poor image from the Ellsworth tower this morning, its on its belly so no undercarriage seen, and looks like a damaged forward fuselage section and cockpit/nose area (almost looks like the cockpit/nose has separated and is lying on its right side when you zoom right in) but I can't see it clearly enough to be 100% sure on that -