B-52 Flight Plan Was For Air Show Practice

The Fairchild B-52 that crashed and killed four crewmen last June was practicing for the upcoming air show, the plane’s flight plan says.

Documents obtained by The SpokesmanReview under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the plane was not - as Air Force officials said at the time of the crash - practicing takeoffs and landings.

The military flight plan lists “Airshow Practice” in the space set aside for any remarks about the flight. It also says the bomber was scheduled to take off in conjunction with a KC-135 tanker that also was practicing for the air show.

The form was signed by Lt. Col. Arthur “Bud” Holland, the pilot of the plane, which was designated as Czar 52 for that flight.

In the hours after the June 24 crash, the Pentagon announced that the plane was performing “touch and go’s,” that is, a series of takeoffs and landings which crews routinely do to maintain their requirements for flying.

Fairchild Air Force Base officials described the flight as a “local transitional sortie,” or a “local training mission,” in statements given two days after the crash.

When asked at that time whether the crew was practicing for the June 26 air show, officials said they could not comment further on the nature of the flight.

But Sgt. Sue Conard, a Fairchild spokeswoman, said this week there was no attempt to mislead the public in the hours after the crash.

“We had no confirmation that it was flying air show practice,” Conard said.

Information about the bomber’s mission came from staff at the base air traffic tower, Conard said. The tower was in charge of controlling the area where the B-52 and the KC-135 were flying. It also is where the flight plan was filed.

“I don’t know why they couldn’t confirm it was practicing for the air show,” Conard said. “Maybe the communication wasn’t flowing as well as it could have in those first hours after the crash.”

But Conard argued that saying the plane was on a training mission still would be correct.

“If you’re going to fly for the air show, which you haven’t done for a year, you’re not going to do it without practicing,” she said. “Practice, training, they’re the same thing.”

Although the base never issued any official statements confirming the plane’s air show practice, most reports have noted that probably was at least part of the bomber’s mission that day.

Unofficial sources at the base said the day of the crash that Holland, who had flown in at least two previous air shows for the annual Fairchild Open House, was to fly in the base’s last event as a B-52 facility.

The 1994 Open House was canceled because of the crash.

At a memorial ceremony the week after the crash, speakers eulogizing the crew also noted it was a ceremonial last flight for two men on board who were being assigned to jobs where they no longer would be flying.

Holland, Col. Robert Wolff, Lt. Col. Mark McGeehan and Lt. Col. Kenneth Huston were killed in the fiery crash.

Holland, who was in charge of the base’s instructor pilots, was regarded by many as the Air Force’s best B-52 pilot. But some sources have said his maneuvers at air shows, which included steep climbs and sharp banking turns, broke Air Force safety regulations for the use of the mammoth bombers.

An amateur videotape of the plane shows it flying with its wings going nearly perpendicular to the ground just before it fell and burst into flames.

The crash is under investigation by the Air Force and it is not yet known if the plane was in that sharply banking turn as part of its air show routine.

The flight plan does not describe the maneuvers the crew expected to fly, which sources said is not unusual for that particular form.

It also would be standard practice for Holland, as the pilot, to sign the form in the box marked “Approval Authority.”

But if the crew was planning to practice steep climbs or sharp turns, they would have needed special permission that would not show up on the form.

Under Air Force regulations, neither Holland nor Fairchild’s commander at the time, Col. William Brooks, could have given permission to perform steep climbs or sharply banking turns. That would have to come from the headquarters of Air Combat Command, the unit in charge of all the nation’s bombers and fighters.

Officials at Air Combat Command have denied that any such permission was given.

Members of Congress have asked Air Force Secretary Sheila Widnall to explain what kind of maneuvers the plane was practicing, and who approved them.

That congressional inquiry is expected to zero in on two things: What Brooks and Air Combat officials at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia knew about the maneuvers, and whether the air show routine violated a promise the Air Force made to Congress in 1987 not to use large planes such as bombers and tankers in risky air show maneuvers.

That promise came after a Fairchild KC-135 that was practicing an air show routine crashed, killing seven people.

Brooks, who has been approved by the Senate to become a brigadier general, turned over command of the Fairchild wing on July 1 when the base became a tanker facility. He initially was scheduled to become the commander of another B-52 wing in Louisiana, but his assignment later was changed.

A Pentagon spokesman said Brooks was given a different job as deputy director for reserve readiness for the 12th Air Force at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. The spokesman added that the Pentagon does not comment on the reasons for changes in assignment or compare the relative importance of jobs.