Most expensive crash in history caught on camera

[SUBMAN1]

Looks like the lost an engine.

http://shock.military.com/Shock/videos.do?displayContent=169718

-S

PS. Here is the official take on it:

The most expensive crash in Air Force history - the $1.4 billion loss of a B-2 Spirit bomber Feb. 23 - was caused by water clogging aircraft sensors, according to an Air Combat Command report. The two pilots couldn't regain control of the bomber and as the left wing struck the runway, the pilots safely ejected.

[Raptor1]

This is the first time a B-2 is lost from any reason, right?

Gruesome

[bookworm_020]

This is the first time a B-2 is lost from any reason, right?

Gruesome

Thats correct!:yep:

[Steel_Tomb]

It wasnt engine failure. The official investigation found that condensation on one of the aircrafts sensors was causing it to feed incorect information to the flight control computer. When the pilot commanded a 10-15 degree nose up climb the computer ordered a 35 degree AoA, to compound the problem the aircraft was also some 20-30knts below the correct take off speed; again caused by the computer sending faulty information to the airspeed indicator. Combine the slow speed with high AoA and you get a stall. Once the aircraft started to pitch over to the left, clipping the ground, there was no way to save the airframe.

Its a known issue, so a laspe in aircraft maintanence probably lead to the crash.

[kiwi_2005]

I thought the topic was going to be about some beastie computer crashing:oops:

[rifleman13]

Well, that's $ 2.2 billion down the drain!:down:

And all of that because of a computer glitch!:shifty:

[Platapus]

that is one of the problems with having an aircraft where each air frame costs 1-2 Billion Dollars each. While it may or may not be good at evading enemy detection, mother nature is still a cruel mistress and airplanes do fall out of sky.

At 1-2 billion a pop, this will continue to be the most expensive crash. :(

I am just glad the pilots were able to eject.

Yeah ACES II an oldie but a goodie

[Tango589]

I hope they aren't going to dock the cost from his wages...:o

[darius359au]

Its amazing how many times a multi million dollar accident can be traced back to a 2 dollar part - Apollo 13's explosion was traced back to a 50 cent switch that hadn't been changed when the power requirements for the system had been beefed up or, in this case , a bit of condensation on a sensor:nope:

[Platapus]

Its amazing how many times a multi million dollar accident can be traced back to a 2 dollar part - Apollo 13's explosion was traced back to a 50 cent switch that hadn't been changed when the power requirements for the system had been beefed up or, in this case , a bit of condensation on a sensor:nope:


We still use the Apollo 13 incident in our system engineering classes. There aint so such thing as a "small" change.

[Stealth Hunter]

We could avoid problems with spacecraft today if the government would quit cutting NASA's budget and stop forcing them to rely on funding from universities and such.