It happens

Last month we got news that a B2 had crashed inGuam. It will be a crash felt for years, notbecause of any maintenance issues in the B2 fleet,but because this is such a small fleet ofaircraft, that is used heavily, where losing onewill have a deleterious effect on how far theforce can be stretched.

Unlike the F-15 Crash in October last year,this was just one of those things that happens. Anoperation incident. Sure, the investigation boardswill look it over, sure they will havetheir recommendations, but this will have littleor no long term impact on how the small force isoperated on a daily basis, or how it's long termfuture is seen.

One item of note seems to be that USAFfirefighting has improved substantially from thefirst YF-22 crash at Edwards in 1992. In thatincident, the aircraft burned for days becausethey didn't have the firefighting chemicals to putout the carbon/graphite and titanium fires. Inthis case the aircraft seems to have been dowsedexpeditiously. I'm sure from the descriptions ofthe event that the hull is a write-off, buteveryone must feel a lot better about the crashcontrol they now have, especially with respect tothe growing numbers of F-22's and future serviceintroduction of the F-35.