By DIRK LAMMERS
FILE – This Dec. 10, 2008 file photo provided by the US Air Force shows a B-1B Lancer bomber from the US Air Force’s 34th Expeditionary Squadron. A B-1B bomber out of South Dakota’s Ellsworth Air Force Base crashed in a remote area of southeastern Montana on Monday, Aug. 19, 2013 but the four crew members survived, the U.S. Air Force said. (AP Photo/Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon – U.S. Air Force, File)
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A B-1B bomber crashed in a remote area of southeastern Montana on Monday, but its four crew members survived after ejecting from the South Dakota-based aircraft, Air Force officials said.
The two pilots and two weapons system officers ejected before the bomber crashed near Broadus, Mont., said Col. Kevin Kennedy, commander of the 28th Bomb Wing. There were some reports of injuries, he said, though details weren’t immediately released.
“We are actively working to ensure the safety of the crew members and have sent first responders to secure the scene and work closely with local authorities at the crash site,” Kennedy said in a statement. “Right now, all of our thoughts and prayers are with the crews and their families.”
The plane was based out of South Dakota’s Ellsworth Air Force Base, one of only two bases in the U.S. that have B-1B crews. Kennedy said the Air Force will conduct a thorough investigation to determine the cause of the accident, which happened about 170 miles southeast of Billings, Mont.
The B-1B Lancer is a swing-wing bomber intended for high-speed, low-altitude penetration missions. The only other base with B-1B crews is Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, Texas.
Broadus, Mont., is a town within the Powder River Training Complex, an 8,300-square-mile block of airspace centered just northwest of where South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana meet.
An Air Force plan to more than triple the airspace, which is used in training exercises for B-1B and B-52 bombers based in the Dakotas, has been in the works for more than six years. The Air Force wants to add three “military operation areas” to create a fly space of about 27,500 square miles — an area larger than West Virginia.
The last time a B-1B was destroyed in a crash was on Dec. 12, 2001, when a bomber involved in the war in Afghanistan slammed into the Indian Ocean near the island of Diego Garcia, said Air Force Lt. Col. Allen Herritage. A cause has never been determined. The crew had reported having difficulty controlling the bomber. All four crewmen ejected safely, including the pilot and co-pilot, who were from Ellsworth.
At the start of the war in Afghanistan, B-1Bs and B-52s were making almost daily bombing runs over the country and began pounding al-Qaida mountain hide-outs in the Tora Bora region.
In April 2008, an Ellsworth B-1B bomber caught fire after landing at al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The crew members all escaped safely. A month earlier, an Ellsworth B-1B collided with two emergency-response vehicles during landing after reporting an in-flight emergency at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam.
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Associated Press researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York and AP writer Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this story.
