A US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bomber plane has “crashed shortly after take off” from Edwards Air Force Base in southern California, the base said in a statement. <\/p>\n
The incident occurred at 11:20 local time (19:20 GMT). The base did not say whether there were any injuries as a result of the crash, which sent a huge plume of black smoke into the air that could be seen for miles<\/p>\n
“Emergency crews immediately responded to the scene and the situation is ongoing. More information will be provided as it becomes available,” the base said in a statement. <\/p>\n
A representative of the base declined to comment on the situation when contacted by BBC News.<\/p>\n
The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress has been used by the US military since the 1950s. It is nicknamed “the Buff”, which is partly short for “Big Ugly Fat”. <\/p>\n
Aerial footage showed a charred, smoking landscape where the crash occurred.<\/p>\n
In a later update on X, the base said that “the airfield has been closed, and all inbound aircraft are being diverted”.<\/p>\n
“All non-commercial visitor passes have been suspended until further notice to allow the installation to focus entirely on emergency response operations.”<\/p>\n
The B-52 is a long-range strategic bomber that has been participating in bombing raids on Iran during the latest US-Israeli war on the country.<\/p>\n
Capable of flying at up to 50,000 feet (commercial airliners fly around 35,000 feet) the colossal bomber’s 70,000lb payload can include hundreds of conventional bombs and 32 nuclear cruise missiles.<\/p>\n
It can refuel in mid-air – giving it a potentially unlimited strike range. This created a “nuclear umbrella” for the United States during the Cold War, back in the era of Mutually Assured Destruction.<\/p>\n
They typically carry a crew of five – an aircraft commander, pilot, radar navigator, navigator and electronic warfare officer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bomber plane has “crashed shortly after take off” from Edwards Air Force…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-640516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}