B-2A Spirit suffered in flight emergency (fire), emergency (crash) landing this evening

[L8APEX]

Details are coming in slowly, but the aircraft was "performing normal operations" when it suffered an in flight emergency. It now sounds like a fire. She was able to land at Whiteman AFB (where they are based) but one of the rear mains failed and one of the wings ended up in the dirt, similar to the incident with the "Spirit of Georgia" in Sept of '21 That lost the the port side main gear after part of the spring system failed. they only recently got her patched enough to fly her back to Palmdale to get properly repaired, covered in duct tape.
The crew are safe/ and uninjured but it sounds like the aircraft suffered extensive damage from the main failing and the wing hitting the dirt and the fire.

After losing "Spirit of Kansas" in Guam we were down to 20 aircraft, With Georgia's damage, 19 available airframes it's been hard to keep 10 B-2A Active. But If the fire damage and crash damage is as extensive as it sounds the aircraft might be too structurally compromised to repair. Or even if we wanted to the tooling like with the F-22 may have disappeared.

 

[Corbic]

 

[03 DSG Snake]

View attachment 1773038

 

[Lambeau]

Thanks for the details. At least no fatalities/injuries.

 

[L8APEX]

The red lights are not the navigational beacons as that is the starboard wing (would be green if it was on), the port side is reported "in the dirt, on fire." The nose of the aircraft would be facing the right of this picture.

The left main failed after landing on "Spirit of Georgia" about a year ago halfway through landing and it looked similar (overall) minus the fire. This took a year to make airworthy enough to ferry to Northrup's "Hangar 41" in Palmdale. Lots of speed tape.
Georgia had one of the main springs in the port side gear let go halfway down the runway, and she skid off on her wing. Ripped the gear door off as well as one of the control surfaces on the wing, then there was the gash to the belly where you could see the intervals.

 

[BOOGIE MAN]

Billion dollar aircraft

At least no injuries, right?

 

[Lambeau]

Pictured next to people and a Bobcat, I just thought being a bomber, it would be about 50% larger.

 

[Silverstrike]

Pictured next to people and a Bobcat, I just thought being a bomber, it would be about 50% larger.

View attachment 1773073

No infact the B-2 is the smallest out of the 3 current airframes in use B-52, B-1B, B-2, the flying wing just makes it seem big. But the fuselage and cockpit are about the same size as a F-111! But has far bigger internal space for the crew.

 

[L8APEX]

And the F-111 ejected that entire cockpit (the B-1A as well.)
That blended wing makes for a lot of space, and throws people off. Most is for fuel vs payload and honestly many sections are nearly empty as it's all about RCS and aero as well as dissipating IR signatures from the the engines as the Soviets were big on using IRST.
The B-21 is much smaller. The big push is being capable of flying autonomous too, hopefully hedging bets keeping the pilots in the aircraft.

 

[Roots-type]

View attachment 1773038

The chick in that movie was too damn cute. Mmmm mmmm!

 

[03Sssnake]

 

[VenomousDSG]

View attachment 1773038

Damn good movie, loved it when i was a kid.

 

[L8APEX]

Some closer images of this B-2 after the Incident

 

[Double"O"]

Hard to believe those acft are getting old...close to 35yrs for the earlier tail numbers

 

[03 DSG Snake]

Damn good movie, loved it when i was a kid.

I have an autographed Laserdisc copy somewhere when I met John Woo.

CLASSIC cinema..

 

[L8APEX]

There has been a NOTAM since the incident that the runway /taxiways at Whiteman are closed now until the end of the year/ further notice.
The B-2 is still on the runway awaiting recovery operations', interfering with air operations.
Meanwhile the entire B-2A fleet has now officially been grounded.
I've heard the left wing is in bad shape.

 

[JPKII]

There has been a NOTAM since the incident that the runway /taxiways at Whiteman are closed now until the end of the year/ further notice.
The B-2 is still on the runway awaiting recovery operations', interfering with air operations.
Meanwhile the entire B-2A fleet has now officially been grounded.
I've heard the left wing is in bad shape.

Read that this morning. We still have the B-52's and B-1's out there but the B-2 is an important part of our air triad.

 

[L8APEX]

The B-52 has the rotary launched cruise missiles but the same rotary nuclear capability has been removed from the B-1B as it has taken up the JDAM "Bomb Truck" role, leaving only the Spirit as the sole dedicated bomber in the inventory that can "safely" deliver the B61 or B83 to a peer adversary.
In a pinch the B-1B I think could be used, but I'm guessing they'd send any airworthy Spirits not at Whiteman if it was Nuclear War.

The benefit of this component is unlike ICBM and SLBM that give 15 mins to react, and practically ensue MAD good ol Bombers take a while longer and can ultimately be called back. The cruise missiles can be rippled off but the old "dial a yield" gravity bombs have to be released over each target. Having the "human" element in place with a bit of extra time (and great cost to do what's "right") has somehow kept both sides from accidentally going into WWIII too many times.

Btw looks like it's "Spirit of Hawaii" this time. I think that's #AV-16 as Kansas was #12