Yet another incident at Guam

Steyr

The U.S. Air Force has clarified initial reports of Friday afternoon's B-1b
Lancer bomber incident at Andersen Air Force Base in Yigo. According to
Captain Joel Stark with the base's Public Affairs Office, the aircraft was
neither assigned to nor deployed at Andersen. He told KUAM News the bomber
was en route to its homebase at Ellsworth AFB in Meade County, South Dakota,
having recently participated in an air show in Singapore.

Cpt. Stark said after taking off from AAFB the crew radioed back to the base
that they were experiencing an in-flight emergency necessitating a landing.
After returning to the island and touching down, the pilots proceeded to
taxi the bomber and after stopping on the taxiway were met by emergency
crews, as per standard procedure. After the pilots safely exited the
aircraft, for reasons still undetermined the plane began to roll
independently, eventually colliding with a pair of emergency fire trucks
nearby.

The aircraft reportedly suffered significant damage to one of its wings and
remains at AAFB under the examination of investigators.

Cpt. Stark noted that because the Air Force has several squadrons of B-1s,
keeping the aircraft on Guam does not impose a risk to the Air Force's
mission. Stark added that the bomber will remain here while local crews fix
it, or the military bring in other people.

This is the third incident involving the crashing of a military aircraft in
less than a month. A Navy Ea-6b Prowler attached to the U.S.S. Kittyhawk
strike group went down about 20 miles to the north of AAFB on February 12;
11 days later the crash of a billion-dollar B-2 Spirit stealth bomber
shortly after takeoff at AAFB made global headlines.

The B-1b line reportedly is manufactured for the U.S. military at a cost of
$200 million each.


Perhaps the chocks and brakes were not applied to the Aircraft!:p