February 16, 1956 – The First Fatal Crash of a B-52 Bomber

Nice piece Moose. I knew a guy that flew an SR71. He said he'd trust it to Mach 10. I wonder what the Russian equvalent to the 52 was? Is it the B 1 that is now the preimer manned bomber? Think I'll watch Dr. Stranglove again.

Thanks, Transcendian. Good to hear from you again. Are you still in contact with the guy who flew the SR71? If so, I'd love to interview him for CR4. With regard to your question, I believe that the B-2 is now the USAF's premier manned bomber. The Air Force is already thinking about its next-generation bomber, though.

Another is said to have crashed in Gram, Washington state. We call it the crater and it used to be a 4 wheel drive playgroung. The local lore is that a B52 did a 600mph nose dive into the ground creating the crater. Never thought to verify the facts.

Last I heard it's all houses around it now. But it was a big enough hole that one side was used for shooting practice.

Brad

I'll do a little digging on the Web, UV. Thanks for the information.

Blogs like this bring back a lot of memories. I was stationed with the 93rd at Castle from '80 -'86. We had a double wing of BUFFS and tankers doing a crew training mission. Lots of 12 hour days and hard work but good duty.

In Nov. '82 I was on the line when the G model #2597 landed in heavy rain and blew a hydraulic line in the front wheel well. The crew egressed safely and then the plane exploded and burned to the ground. That was a sight to remember.

Three weeks later we were up Mather on MITO launch when ops got a G on water up behind an B-52H. The G's J57 turbojet on water injection was faster than the TF-33 the H used. 6482 was about to run up the rear of the H model hard and fast when the co-pilot chopped throttles and flooded out due to water. The pilot did a masterful kick and slew as he lost the bird, but he got it away from a rush hour intersection full of cars and that saved a lot of lives.

To answer Trancendian's question about the Russian equivalent... the TU-95 Bear. Although a turboprop engine...it was the backbone of the the Russian fleet for a long time and is still in service. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95

Great to have you with us, Switchman. Thanks for sharing those stories of your own.

Moose,

It took me a few days of digging for this link in my old beast of a home PC.

You may find something of interest. Mr. Baugher has compiled a very good list of serial number, as well as having a ton of decent links to peruse.

http://home.att.net/~jbaugher/

Thanks, Switchman! I'm like a kid at Christmas here. This is a great website and a real treasure trove. Look for more blog entries about military aviation in the weeks and months to come.

Best,

Moose

it's something how bad something can start out, on the verge of cancelation, only to turn out the be one of the best ideas so far.

Also as equally interesting, is how the concept was conceived and derived, basically over the weekend.

Such as some of the side notes;

The pilot and co-pilot side by side configuration was not due to design efficiently. but solely to impress LaMay, because of his old fashioned favoritism that the pilots should be sitting side by side like the bomber pilots in WWII.

or carving a conceptual model that same week end.

I was station at Parks AFB CA. (in the Air police squadron) at the time of this crash

and pulled duty guarding this crash site.

Jim

Good to hear from you, Jim. I hope you'll come back to CR4 and register. I would enjoy learning more about your experience at Parks AFB. - Moose

Jim,

Can you tell me what you had to do and what you saw? I have personal interest in this crash.

Jan

I lived in Tracy when this occured. I was 14 years old. The plane crash if i remember right was close to the Tracy Defense Depot. I was laying on the couch watching t.v. and heard this rumbling noise and it shook the house.. We lived about 4 miles from the crash site. After hearing this noise for what seemed a long time and probably wasn't, I went outside ans saw huge pieces of metal tumbling down.. And i saw parachutes too. The news said that there were four crewman that perished and four that survived. Later the Tracy Press said that 100,000 dollars worth of windows were broken in tracy. I remember when my brother took me out there in a day or two. Indeed there were military guards watching over the crash site.. Maybe i saw you Jim. on that day in 1956. My Brother was particulary affected by this.. He was in Tracy on leave from the Air Force. He was stationed at Geiger field in Washington. The site of yet another B-52 crash although many years later.. Dan

I too was living in Tracy when this occurred. I was 19 years old. It is amazing how something like this can be indelibly etched in the memory. I remember being amazed when a couple B 52s overflew the wreckage. They were low and at that time I had never seen a plane that size. The B 52 is an aircraft that even today makes me want to stand up and salute.

My grandfather Harold Korger was a radar observer on this flight. He bailed out and survived the crash. Tara

I too was in Tracy at the time of the crash, although I would not be born for another 3 weeks. I'm told that my parents were chatting with our next door neighbors when the neighbor - a pilot and partner in a local flying service - said "there's something wrong with that plane." They stepped outside and looked, just in time to see it explode in the sky south of town.

Some 10-12 years later, our family was camping on the Oregon Coast when a man stepped up and asked if we were from Tracy... he'd noticed the license plate frame on the car. Telling him yes, he then asked if my parents remembered the B-52 that exploded. He had been one of the crew that managed to bail out.

It's a small world.

Hello,

My father, James K. Fredricksen, was on that ill-fated flight. He had given his seat to your grandfather, Major Korger.

Janice Fredricksen Naber

I wanted to pass along a very interesting story that my father told me. His name is Tom Suitts and he was scheduled to be aboard the infamous flight that crashed over Tracy, CA., on 2/16/1956. Just after receiving his flight issued helmet and preparing to board, a car pulled up and out jumped a fellow airman and informed my dad that he was being bumped from the flight. That airman did not survive. My father said that the airman's parachute was soaked with jet fuel and caught fire as he was ejected from the plane.

I believe that it was my lucky day as well as my father's...I was born November 27th, 1956!