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Friday, February 20, 1998

Details begin to emerge of doomed bomber flight

By TED BRIDIS / Associated Press Writer

MARION, Ky. (AP) -- In chaos at 20,000 feet, with smoke quickly filling the cockpit, the crew of an Air Force B-1B bomber, call-sign "Dark Zero-Two," made a life-and-death decision to eject from the crippled plane.

Details of the final moments of the doomed flight began to emerge Thursday, as the Air Force began its investigation in earnest into Wednesday's bomber crash in western Kentucy.

After the four-man crew safely escaped, the unarmed B-1B continued flying roughly 12 miles before plowing into a muddy cow pasture and exploding. Unmanned, it passed along the edge of this farming community of 3,300 and went down four miles away.

When it crashed, it missed a family's farmhouse by about 200 feet.

No one on the ground was hurt, and all four crew members were hospitalized in good condition Thursday. The Air Force planned to interview them later Thursday for the first time, and investigators began studying the wreckage scattered into small pieces by the huge explosion over 20 acres.

Dyess Air Force Base, near Abilene, Texas, canceled all B-1B flights Thursday during an internal safety review. The crashed plane, part of the 9th Bomb Squadron of the 7th Bomb Wing, was based at Dyess, one of 41 B-1B bombers there. Flights at the four other B-1B bases nationwide were not affected.

But questions persisted: Did the crew simply cross its fingers and hope the ailing bomber would crash in an unpopulated area? Or did they take steps to prevent what could have been much, much worse?

Billy Wayne Baird of nearby Mexico, Ky., said Thursday that he talked to one crew member who was picked up walking along a rural road in the minutes after the crash. He described the officer as bruised and scratched.

"I told him, the plane went ahead and crashed," Baird recalled. "He looked at me and asked, ÔDid it crash in a heavily populated area?' He looked like it was a relief to him. He was concerned, I could tell."

Baird and others who talked with the survivors said the air crew described the cockpit filled with heavy smoke, so thick that afterward they weren't sure whether all had ejected safely. Witnesses also said the crew members were unsure where they had landed.

Randy Rushing, a volunteer firefighter who found Capt. Jeffrey Sabella walking in a field, said the co-pilot told him "something went haywire." When the crew tried to return to Dyess, "we couldn't control the plane," Sabella told Rushing. "We bailed."

The Air Force said there is no specific procedure to avoid populated areas for crews ejecting from a crippled aircraft, but "any air crew is going to keep that in mind," said Air Force Master Sgt. Sandra Pischner.

"Over the last number of years, there have been a large number of military pilots who have purposefully ridden their aircraft into the ground, killing themselves, specifically to avoid having their aircraft crash in a residential area," Air Force Lt. Col. Jim Shermeyer said at the scene.

An Air Force spokeswoman later said she could not remember specific accidents where pilots had sacrificed themselves.

The military released a few new details Thursday of the doomed flight, saying it departed Dyess about 9 a.m. CST on a cross-country training mission that included air-to-air refueling and high- and low-level flying.

Shermeyer said the bomber was at 20,000 feet over Kentucky when the crew ejected, about 1:45 p.m. CST. The National Weather Service said clouds extended below 2,000 feet in the area during that time.

The Air Force identified the crew in Wednesday's crash as Lt. Col. Daniel Charchian, the instructor pilot; Sabella, the co-pilot; Capt. Kevin Schields, the instructor weapons officer; and 1st Lt. Bert Winslow, the weapons system officer. It did not release their ages or hometowns, citing federal privacy laws.

Investigators asked residents not to disturb any wreckage from the accident, which was spread nearly a mile long over several farmfields. They also asked anyone who picked up debris to return it.

Earlier in the day, one man found a copy of a large red notebook marked "7th Wing Communications; Secret NATO Crypto" and brought it to The Crittenden Press weekly newspaper before returning it investigators.