11/11/2023 0 Comments B52 cockpit stations![]() I got a first-hand account of the incident. My mother, one of two women on the fuels crew at that time was working on the bomber that suffered and started the catastrophe. Naturally, he did not survive the veritable blast furnace created by the vacuum draft. In doing this, he created a vacuum and a new path for the fire. Jesse, trapped in the cockpit of a burning plane with nowhere to go, and against the screams of his crew mates opened the top hatch to attempt to escape. A crew mate, Willy was a thin man and managed to jump out of the cockpit, injuring himself from the high drop-survived the incident for this reason. ![]() Regulations at the time were such that a man of his frame was too large to fit through all points of egress( I.e. The one fatality, his name Jesse, in the cockpit on radio-was a large man weighing nearly 300 lbs. When this mass of fuel, so heavy and volatile hit the tarmac, it caused a static charge which moved to the fuel truck on station. With the vent still “plugged” the vapors had no where to go, causing a nearly solid “cube” of JP4 fuel to drop out of the plane’s fuselage. Not knowing a vent plug was still in place( no warning tag), the fuels crew, already short some people, under crew chief Rick Bemrich (sp?) began fueling. The previous shift had logged in the book that it was ready to fuel and no leaks had been identified. ![]() Due to the rushed nature of its machining, this warning tag was left off. A “vent plug” had to be tooled out by engineering-usually a red streamer would’ve been affixed, so as to identify that a vent plug was still in place. Destroyed by a ground explosion and fire during depot maintenance on July 24 1989: one worker killed and 11 injured.Ĭause reported to be "near-catastrophic fuel tank over-pressurization" because a WG-5 forgot to unplug a fuel vent. Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sourcesī-52G s/n 58‑0190 of 2nd Bomb Wing at Kelly AFB, San Antonio, Texas. 2nd BWg USAF (2nd Bomb Wingg United States Air Force) ![]()
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