{"id":127683,"date":"2026-06-16T10:46:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T05:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/?p=127683"},"modified":"2026-06-16T10:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T05:46:08","slug":"us-air-force-b-52-bomber-crashes-in-california-killing-all-8-crew-aboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127683\/","title":{"rendered":"US Air Force B-52 bomber crashes in California, killing all 8 crew aboard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Web desk(National Times)- A US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bomber\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/2008207\/us-b-52-bomber-crashes\">crashed\u00a0<\/a>on takeoff on Monday at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California\u2019s Mojave Desert, bursting into flames and killing all eight crew members aboard, Air Force officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The eight-engine, jet-powered aircraft, built to carry a wide array of nuclear and conventional bombs, was on a routine test mission when it crashed on the runway at Edwards just after leaving the ground, Air Force Colonel James Hayes said at a press conference hours later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A towering pall of black smoke billowing from the crash site was visible for miles immediately after the accident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He said the \u201cmixed crew\u201d aboard the aircraft consisted of government civilians, government contractors and uniformed military personnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Aerospace giant Boeing, which designed and built the plane, said two of its employees were among the dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The flight was intended to support a radar modernisation programme, Hayes told reporters. The cause of the crash was unknown and under investigation, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Air Force officials did not name the victims, saying they were still in the process of notifying their next of kin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Aerial video footage of the crash scene, about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, showed a charred, smoldering patch of the desert floor larger than a football field as an emergency vehicle was seen driving along the site\u2019s perimeter. From a distance, there were no large pieces of debris readily visible in the footage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hayes said the crash was quickly \u201cdeemed to be unsurvivable\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because of damage to the runway, he said, \u201cwe\u2019re grounding all operations at Edwards Air Force Base\u201d through at least Tuesday, adding that no operations beyond the base would be suspended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Edwards, a sprawling test flight facility established in the 1930s around a dry lake bed, occupies about 481 square miles of the Mojave desert, making it the Air Force\u2019s largest airfield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Its experimental aviation legacy includes the flight by Chuck Yeager in the Bell X-1 aircraft that broke the sound barrier in 1947, test flights of the X-15 aircraft and the first landings of NASA\u2019s space shuttles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/2008268\/us-air-force-b-52-bomber-crashes-in-california-killing-all-8-crew-aboard#backbone-of-bomber-force\"><\/a>Backbone of bomber force<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The B-52 Stratofortress, a long-range, subsonic aircraft built to carry up to 70,000 pounds of weapons and supplies, has long served as the backbone of the US crewed strategic bomber force, according to the military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The swept-wing aircraft is capable of unleashing the widest range of weapons in the US inventory, from cluster bombs and gravity bombs to precision-guided missiles and nuclear warheads, at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet, according to an Air Force fact sheet. Its combat range extends more than 8,000 miles without refueling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Monday\u2019s incident marked the first crash of a B-52 Stratofortress since the same type of bomber crashed on the island of Guam in May 2016, according to the Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives, a Geneva-based organisation that collects global aviation accident data. All seven crew members aboard that aircraft survived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Only H models of the B-52 remain in the Air Force inventory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The aircraft involved in Monday\u2019s crash was assigned to the 412th Test Wing, which is based at Edwards. Most B-52s are stationed in North Dakota and Louisiana.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Web desk(National Times)- A US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bomber\u00a0crashed\u00a0on takeoff on Monday at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California\u2019s Mojave Desert, bursting into flames and killing all eight crew members aboard, Air Force officials said. The eight-engine, jet-powered aircraft, built to carry a wide array of nuclear and conventional bombs, was on a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest_news","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>US Air Force B-52 bomber crashes in California, killing all 8 crew aboard - Nation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127683\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"US Air Force B-52 bomber crashes in California, killing all 8 crew aboard - Nation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Web desk(National Times)- A US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bomber\u00a0crashed\u00a0on takeoff on Monday at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California\u2019s Mojave Desert, bursting into flames and killing all eight crew members aboard, Air Force officials said. The eight-engine, jet-powered aircraft, built to carry a wide array of nuclear and conventional bombs, was on a [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127683\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-16T05:46:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-06-16T05:46:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Untitled-design-3-19.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"670\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"370\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"humza Jahangir\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"humza Jahangir\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127683\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127683\/\",\"name\":\"US Air Force B-52 bomber crashes in California, killing all 8 crew aboard - Nation\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127683\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127683\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Untitled-design-3-19.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-16T05:46:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-06-16T05:46:08+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#\/schema\/person\/27efa35fa76e99f3ad7e7397d7332c16\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127683\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127683\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127683\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Untitled-design-3-19.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Untitled-design-3-19.png\",\"width\":670,\"height\":370},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127683\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"US Air Force B-52 bomber crashes in California, killing all 8 crew aboard\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/\",\"name\":\"Nation\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#\/schema\/person\/27efa35fa76e99f3ad7e7397d7332c16\",\"name\":\"humza Jahangir\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/43feedd99bd6a90080d1621b7e6604364acb673ee979d3ffe5075557c14c68b9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/43feedd99bd6a90080d1621b7e6604364acb673ee979d3ffe5075557c14c68b9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"humza Jahangir\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/author\/humza\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"US Air Force B-52 bomber crashes in California, killing all 8 crew aboard - Nation","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127683\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"US Air Force B-52 bomber crashes in California, killing all 8 crew aboard - Nation","og_description":"Web desk(National Times)- A US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bomber\u00a0crashed\u00a0on takeoff on Monday at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California\u2019s Mojave Desert, bursting into flames and killing all eight crew members aboard, Air Force officials said. 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