At least 3 dead in Guam bomber crash

Coast Guard Sector Guam small boats recovered the remains of two crew members Monday, but a massive joint-agency search continues. An Associated Press story reports that at least three airmen were confirmed dead. The ocean search is for the remaining three crew members.

Three vessels including a destroyer, three helicopters, two F-15 fighter jets and a Navy P-3 Orion aircraft based in Japan were involved in the search, which covered roughly 3,000 square miles of the Pacific, said Coast Guard spokesman Lt. John Titchen.

“We’ve basically saturated that area,” said Titchen, who called search conditions “ideal,” with light winds, calm seas and good visibility.

Crews with two Navy HH-60 Jayhawks and a crew aboard a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency helicopter also joined Guam Fire Department and Guam Police Department search crews Monday and yesterday morning.

The unarmed B-52 bomber was en route from Guam’s Andersen Air Force Base to conduct a flyover in a parade on another part of the island when it crashed around 9:45 a.m. Monday about 30 miles northwest of Apra Harbor, the Air Force said.

The Liberation Day parade celebrates the day the U.S. military arrived on Guam to retake control of the island from Japan.

The Air Force said a board of officers will investigate the accident.

The three crew members were wearing their life vests when their bodies were recovered.

“This is a challenging operation when we lose people we work with on a day-to-day basis, so we’re doing the best that we can to cover that area as quickly as we can,” Titchen said.

The Coast Guard’s command center near Apra Harbor reports that search crews have covered nearly 3,000 square miles—essentially saturating an area that covers the B-52’s intended flight path into Andersen Air Force Base from the moment the plane’s communications were lost with the air traffic control tower there.

“We have had terrific cooperation with our Department of Defense and Guam territorial government partners,” said Lt. Elizabeth Buendia, supervisor of the Coast Guard’s search and rescue command center near Apra Harbor.

“Our hearts go out to the families of the victims recovered to this point, but we have an active search and rescue case going for the other crew members aboard the B-52.”

The Coast Guard’s 110-foot patrol boat Assateague was on scene within 45 minutes of the crash. Also on scene is the 225-foot buoy tender Kukui, home ported in Honolulu.

The accident is the second for the Air Force this year on Guam, a U.S. territory 3,700 miles southwest of Hawaii.

In February, a B-2 crashed at Andersen shortly after takeoff in the first-ever crash of a stealth bomber. Both pilots ejected safely. The military estimated the cost of the loss of the aircraft at $1.4 billion.

The plane that crashed Monday was based at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and deployed to Guam as part of the Department of Defense’s continuous bomber presence mission in the Pacific. The Air Force has been rotating B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers through Guam since 2004 to boost the U.S. security presence in the Asia-Pacific region while other U.S. forces in the area have been sent to the Middle East.

Master Sgt. Cindy Dorfner, a spokeswoman for the Air Combat Command in Langley Air Force Base, Va., said the last crash involving a B-52 was on June 24, 1994 in Spokane, Wash. The bomber was practicing touch-and-go landings before an air show at Fairchild Air Force Base when it plunged to the ground and exploded, killing all four on board.

The Air Force has 93 B-52 bombers remaining in its fleet.

The B-52 is a long-range, heavy bomber that can refuel in midair. Since the 159-foot-long bomber was first placed into service in 1955, it has been used for a wide range of missions from attacks to ocean surveillance.

According to the Air Force’s Web site, the B-52 Stratofortress has been the backbone of the manned strategic bomber force for the United States for more than four decades. It is capable of dropping or launching the widest array of weapons in the U.S. inventory, including cluster bombs and precision guided missiles. [B][I](With AP)[/I][/B]