Airmen evacuate KC-135 in Kyrgyzstan

Three Fairchild Air Force Base airmen were forced Tuesday to evacuate a KC-135 Stratotanker when it caught fire at Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan.

U.S. Air Force firefighters put out the blaze at about 8 p.m. Kyrgyzstan time.

None of the three-member crew was injured in the fire, which happened after an aerial refueling mission.

“We don’t have any names yet,” said Fairchild public affairs officer Capt. Jason McCree of the crew.

The tanker was deployed from the 92nd Air Refueling Wing at Fairchild to the 376th Air Expeditionary Wing.

The Air Force is investigating the fire.

The goal is to complete such investigations within 30 days, said Major John Elolf, with public affairs at U.S. Central Command Air Forces at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina.

U.S. Central Command Air Forces oversees Manas Air Base.

The Air Force has detailed emergency procedures for fires, and flight crews regularly practice evacuations, said Lt. Col. Roger Watkins, Fairchild’s 92nd Operations Group deputy commander.

Tankers typically carry only slightly more fuel than is necessary to get them to their destination and to complete their refueling mission. They don’t land with large reserves in the refueling tanks, Watkins said.

“On a typical mission with the amount of fuel we land with, there is not much more potential for fire than on any other plane of comparable size,” he said.

Manas officials didn’t respond Wednesday to a newspaper request for more information about Tuesday’s tanker fire.