Engine trouble forces B-2 to land in Colorado Springs
With the help of bright floodlights on the tarmac, a repair crew worked well into the night outside Peterson Air Force Base on a B-2 bomber that was forced to make an emergency landing almost 24 hours earlier.
It was around 3am Tuesday morning that the control tower at the Colorado Springs Airport was notified that the stealth bomber needed to come down.
While flyovers of a B-2 Spirit are not uncommon in the Pikes Peak region, especially over the Air Force Academy, they rarely land.
Less than two dozen were produced in the early 1990’s, at a cost of more than a billion dollars each.
The B-2 tends to fly slowly, and can travel up to 6,000 miles on a single tank, but it can also refuel midflight.
Rather than speed, it relies on its spectacular shape with radar-defeating angles to allow it to fly behind enemy lines undetected.
It is known for having made several 24 hour plus missions that both began and ended at Whiteman Air Force Base in central Missouri where they are housed and maintained.
The staff at Peterson wouldn’t say a word about what happened this week, and wouldn’t even go near it, as it belongs to another installation and unit.
The bomber’s technology is also highly complex and highly classified, allowing only specially trained mechanics to examine and repair it.
In a statement, a spokesman at Whiteman would only say, “The aircraft was enroute to Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri. Two pilots were on board and both aviators are unharmed. The exact cause of the in-flight emergency is under investigation.”
However, radio traffic from the Colorado Springs control tower, posted on the website Live ATC, suggests it lost one of at least four engines and then had trouble with it’s communications.
In one particular audio clip, an air traffic controller can be heard saying, “Yeah, there’s another issue with the aircraft coming in. They’re unable to change frequencies, so I’m just relaying through Denver center all the information, but as far as i know, it’s just the #4 engine out.”
Sources tell KRDO a crew from missouri arrived Tuesday afternoon and would have liked to have worked on it privately in a hangar.
Unfortunately Peterson doesn’t appear to have a hangar big enough for the B-2’s 172-foot wingspan, based on measurements of aerial photos from Google Earth.
Only the hangars back in Missouri are designed for its unique shape.
With the extent of the engine trouble unclear, it’s unclear how long it will remain in Colorado Springs, but keep your eyes on the sky, because it’s unlikely the military will give any advance notice to the public before the rare aircraft is back on the runway for takeoff.
