Reuters. A U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bomber crashed on Monday (June 15) shortly after takeoff from Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California's Mojave Desert, and all eight crew members aboard were presumed to have been killed, the base said.
The eight-engine, jet-powered aircraft, built to carry nuclear and conventional bombs, was on a routine test mission when it went down, Edwards said in a statement about four hours after the crash.
Aerial video footage of the crash scene, about 100 miles (161 km) north of Los Angeles, showed a charred, smoldering patch of the desert floor roughly the size of a football field as an emergency vehicle was seen driving along the site's perimeter.
The Stratofortress, designed and built by Boeing, is a long-range, subsonic aircraft that has long served as the backbone of the U.S. crewed strategic bomber force, according to the military.
The swept-wing aircraft is capable of carrying munitions, including cluster bombs and gravity bombs, at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet (15,166 meters), according to an Air Force fact sheet.
