Video: February's B2 Crash

Ace of Spades HQ ^ | June 6, 2008 | Ace

[faq]

Apparently caused by humidity in its sensors.

Video

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Wow. An expensive loss for such a minor problem. Thanks for the great video!

[chaos_5]

I'm glad the pilot managed to punch out.

[blam]

Bump.

[Steve Van Doorn]

It seems you can see a poof of something just behind the cockpit about point the plane passes the cameraman.

Such a low level accident sure am glad to see the pilots were able to get out.

[pepperdog]

bookmark

[driftdiver]

Just as it leaves the ground and pitches up there looks to be a white rectangle that comes from the cockpit area. I thought it was vapor at first but the shape is rectangular. I’m amazed that they’ve released this video.

[FReepaholic]

I saw the same poof of something right as the plane pitched up. I wonder if it had anything to do with the engine inlets being on top of the wing and the plane pitching up blocked airflow into the engines?

[driftdiver]

I saw the same thing, looks to come from the intake.

[driftdiver]

“I wonder if it had anything to do with the engine inlets being on top of the wing and the plane pitching up blocked airflow into the engines?”

Could it be panel or something that allows more airflow? Looks like it has straight edges to me.

[TXnMA]

That was definitely control system -- not pilot -- input. At the time the second plane started rotating, the first a/c still had its front gear strut fully compressed -- and stayed that way for several seconds longer..

By the time the first a/c rotated enough to offload its front strut, (where the "sector 5" label appears on the tape) the second a/c was well clear of the ground and was in max nose-up attitude.

The last guy to leave the crashing a/c did so almost exactly when the left wing touched the ground. That's called fighting for it to the bitter end! Glad to see that all crewmen made it out OK!

Sad to see such a beautiful a/c (& $2 billion) cartwheeling and making like a napalm drop... :-(

I have made some comparison frame grabs of both a/c at the same points along the unway -- but the video is pretty self-explanatory. Thanks for the post!

[Arkinsaw]

Those are some brave dang pilots to hang with that thing as long as they did. I don’t think they could have punched out any later than they did. I would have been gone when the thing first pitched up....which is why I am not an Air Force pilot.

[flowerplough]

Also glad to see the pilots were able to get out, and am now wishing the Air Force would park the rest of these flat-black lemons. The $1,400,000,000.oo B-2 can’t fly in any mist, fog, rain, or snow; hell, it can’t even be parked outdoors in any mildly-damp weather. For obvious reasons.

Aim high, Air Force, but please don’t let the computers that are actually flying the plane pull the nose up quite so quickly next time, yo?

[Travis McGee]

There’s a B-2 that won’t be a museum piece next to the Buff on display at Andersen AFB.

[JRios1968]

It seems you can see a poof of something just behind the cockpit about point the plane passes the cameraman.

I have seen quite a few conjectures here about the "puff" you see just behind the cockpit as the jet appears to go into the departure stall sequence.

I worked with the B-2s at Whiteman from 1993 until 1995.  I was there before the first one arrived at Whiteman...in fact, I was part of the team that performed the acceptance inspection on the particular jet that crashed.

Having established my "credentials," I think I can speak with some authority about what we see until the moment the jet becomes "a smoking hole in the ground."

What you see when the jet goes into the vertical, the "puff," is simple moisture.  Similar to this picture:

 

As for the low-level ejection, the B-2 ejection seats are the ACES-II seats, which have a "zero-zero" capability, which means, you can pull the lever while the aircraft is standing still, and as long as you're strapped into the seat, you WILL go on the ride of your life, one that will end with a parachute.

[RFEngineer]

“Could it be panel or something that allows more airflow?”

You are correct. Auxiliary Air Inlet Doors - they are open for takeoff as the normal inlets do not provide enough airflow until airborne.

[cpdiii]

“It can’t fly in any mist, fog, rain, or snow;”

It drops it presents from great altitude. There is no mist. fog, rain or snow at 40,000 feet. I grant you it is horribly expensive. However, it gets the bomb to the target with absolute precision and the bad guys do not even know it is there. They know nothing about the aircraft and then they die.

[garjog]

So, I have read your posts. Do any of you know why the B2 crashed?

I wonder if one of the intakes sucked in a duck or large bird?

[faq]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/06/crash.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest

The Air Force said the first crash of a B-2 stealth bomber was caused by moisture in sensors.

The crash probably could have been avoided if knowledge of a technique to evaporate the moisture had been disseminated throughout the B-2 program, Maj. Gen. Floyd L. Carpenter, who headed an accident investigation board, said Thursday.

Water distorted preflight readings in three of the plane’s 24 sensors, making the aircraft’s control computer force the B-2 to pitch up on takeoff, resulting in a stall and subsequent crash.

However, a technique learned by some two years ago that had gone widely unknown and unadopted probably would have prevented the crash, Carpenter said. The technique essentially heats the sensors and evaporates any moisture before data calibrations.

[flowerplough]

A General Accounting Office 1997 report called the B-2 a “fair-weather jet” that can’t be based overseas without expensive climate-controlled hangars. A new transportable hangar system has been developed which allows the B-2 to be deployed to forward locations overseas since then. The hangars are 126ft long, 250ft wide and 55ft high. The first of these hangars was erected on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Prior to this development, B-2s had to return to Whiteman AFB after missions, for maintenance of the aircraft’s stealth features. Brig. Gen. Bruce Carlson, who was in charge of B-2 acquisition in the Pentagon, said heavy rain can cause “discrepancies” that require repair. Maj. Eric Single, a pilot with more than 450 hours of B-2 flying time, said that even light rain can have an adverse effect on the special surface coatings, although moisture does not make the plane less capable of evading enemy radar.

Northrop Grumman has developed a new radar-absorbent coating to preserve the B-2’s stealth characteristics while drastically reducing maintenance time. The new material, known as Alternate High-Frequency Material (AHFM), is sprayed on by four independently controlled robots.

The B-2, after ten years of service, had finally achieved full operational capability in December 2003, and that was probably just our Air Force reducing and re-reducing standards until the plane could be labelled “close enough for government work”.