People killed in B 52 bomber crash during routine test mission Edwards Air Force Base confirms

All right. More now on that breaking news out of Southern California where a B-52 bomber crashed at Edwards Air Force Base today. We have an update now. Let's listen in. That would be appreciated. I'll tell you all up front, and you probably have a sense, there's not a whole lot of information that we can provide, but Colonel Hayes will take some questions and answers afterwards to help you out as much as we can. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mike, and thank you all for coming. Today Edwards Air Force Base experienced a horrible tragedy, and we lost eight great Americans. This crash is deemed to be unsurvivable, and right now our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those that lost their loved ones. We're sending teams out to notify the next of kin right now as we speak, and those next of kin notifications will take place over the coming hours and remainder of the day. It was a B-52 that was on initial takeoff supporting the radar modernization program, which is a test. It was a local test sortie. It took off, and immediately after takeoff, crashed and burst into flames. Our team of first responders snapped into action and immediately took cordoned off the area and took the appropriate action to start putting out the flames. While that was taking place, our base responded in kind to establish an emergency operations center and a wing operations center to ensure that the command and control of all base agencies and the response for the recovery effort was underway. After reviewing the footage of the crash, it was deemed that this was an unrecoverable crash and unsurvivable. At that point, we went into the notification process, and as I said before, that's taking place right now. I want to reiterate that our thoughts and prayers go out to the family members. This is a tragedy, and this is going to be the worst days of their lives. We understand that, and we want to keep them in our thoughts and prayers. At this point, we don't have any indication as to what the cause was of this. We won't be able to release that information, and we don't have an ability to get that anytime soon. Right now, we're going to stand up an interim safety board to do the initial gathering of the facts, and that will then lead to a safety investigation board, which will look into those root causes. Once that's complete, it takes about 30 days, then it'll go into an accident investigation board, and then that will determine all of the information that we can release to the public and to the next account. That process can take upwards of six months, so we will be, we have to wait patiently while that process undergoes to ensure that we have, we respect the process of doing full root cause analysis. At this time, I want to introduce my command chief, Josh Skarlaken, to provide any words, if you would like to. Again, we wish the, we just, we wish absolute condolences for the family members, and again, thank our first responders who responded very bravely. Again, this is a tragedy, something that we never planned for, but we're always prepared for to respond, and we thank those involved as we work through this process. I'll now open it up for questions. Sam, was it? Yeah, thank you for that question. This was a mixed crew. This was a mixed crew of military, government civilians, and government contractors supporting this test mission. Thank you for that question. Appreciate it. No, we don't have the profile or any of that. It was a local test mission that was in execution according to their test plan. That will be made public later. We can't talk about any of the details of the specifics of the aircraft. All of that's going to be analyzed by the accident investigation board, and that information will come out after that. The crash was totally contained within the United, within Edwards Air Force Base on the runway. Ma'am, I appreciate that question. Right now, we're doing next-of-kin notifications, and we don't want to release any information about who these individuals are until their families know about it. We'll have that information 24 hours after next-of-kin notification takes place. I can't speak to the specifics of when that happened. Just, I can't, I don't have that information available to me. It hasn't been within the last three years since I've been here. Absolutely. Our test missions take place every day, multiple times a day. That's correct. Yes, ma'am. So, the initial response is to ensure that we can get the fire out, and that we coordinate off and make it a safe area for everybody, all of our first responders, and anybody that might be coming up to the crash site. So, that is already undergone. Now, it is a recovery operation. Again, we're not going to release any specifics as to the makeup of the crew. I can just say at this time that it was a mixed crew of government civilians, government contractors, and uniformed military. We'll have those details after we have next, excuse me, next-of-kin notification. No. Again, those details will come out over the next several weeks after we have the investigation to release those public records. It was tragic and unsurvivable is where I'll leave it. Yes, we did reopen the ability for individuals to come on base. That's correct. Again, that's the recovery operation that's undergoing. They'll do everything they can to find that information, and then that will be used by the Safety Investigation Board to determine root cause. All right. In case you missed any of this, sadly, eight people dead as a result of a plane crash, a B-52, that was on takeoff at Edwards Air Force Base, which is located in the Mojave Desert in Kern County, about 100 miles north of LA. It exploded as it was taking off, and they're putting out what is left of the fire, but it was not survivable. And right now, they are notifying next-of-kin, agonizing to get that phone call. Eight people died, a mix of government workers, military, and contractors. No details on the people, but our hearts are with everyone.