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Families name airmen onboard downed B-52

Family members have identified a second crew member of a B-52H Stratofortress he that went down about 30 miles off the coast of Guam.

The Daily Courier Observer reported Tuesday one of the crew members was Maj. Christopher Cooper from Massena, N.Y. No information was available on Cooper’s crew position.

Another airman onboard the bomber was identified Monday by family members as Col. George Martin, a doctor assigned to Andersen Air Force Base on Guam.

It is not known if these two airmen are dead or alive.

Search-and-rescue teams said they recovered two bodies in life jackets from the Pacific Ocean and continue to look for the four other airmen.

“Coast Guard assets were on scene within 45 minutes of the accident, and the teamwork we’ve had with them, the Navy and other local and federal agencies has been tremendous,” said Brig. Gen. Douglas Owens, commander of Andersen’s 36th Wing. “We recognize, however, that the longer this search continues, the less likelihood there is that we’ll find survivors. Although we continue to hold out hope, we’ve had no encouraging indicators that our airmen survived this crash.”

The unarmed aircraft, deployed from Barksdale Air Force Base, La., was reported missing at approximately 9:45 a.m. local time Monday. The B-52H was on a training mission and scheduled to perform a parade flyover celebrating Guam’s Liberation Day.

The rescue effort is covering a 900-square-mile area with two U.S. Coast Guard vessels and the destroyer John S. McCain. Additionally, Navy MH-60S Knighthawk helicopters from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 25 and Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles from the 389th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron joined a Navy P-3 Orion from Kadena Air Base, Japan. Guam Police and Fire Department rescue units also joined the search.

Currently, most of the B-52Hs deployed to Guam are from the Barksdale 20th Bomb Squadron, said Col. Robert Wheeler, commander of Barksdale’s 2nd Bomb Wing. Wheeler added that some deployed personnel are from the 96th Bomb Squadron and the Reserve’s 917th Wing, so he could not definitively say which squadron the plane and aircrew were from.

The B-52H bomber, flying since 1952 and part of the Air Force arsenal since 1955, is a remarkably robust aircraft.

The last crash of the type was on June 24, 1994, when a bomber practicing for an air show at Fairchild Air Force Base, near Spokane, Wash., crashed, killing all four crew members. The cause of that crash was determined to be recklessness on the part of the pilot, who banked the airplane too steeply at too low an altitude.

Prior to that, the last B-52H to crash was in early February 1991, when an airplane returning from an Operation Desert Storm mission crashed into the Indian Ocean 15 miles north of Diego Garcia. The cause of that crash, which killed three of the six crew members, was determined to have been an electrical failure.

As with all major Air Force crashes, the B-52H accident will be scrutinized by separate safety and accident investigation boards.

DISCUSS: The incident and investigation