KC-135 Boom-Down Emergency Landing Was Result Of Incident With B-1
Joseph Trevithick - Yesterday 8:51 PM
The U.S. Air Force has confirmed that an incident on Saturday that left a KC-135 aerial refueling tanker with its boom broken and prompted an emergency landing at Yokota Air Base in Japan, also forced a B-1B bomber to divert to Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. Both aircraft were able to get on the ground safely at the respective bases and there were no reported injuries as a result of the incident.
The incident, details about which remain limited, appears to have occurred somewhere over the Pacific Ocean east of Japan on the morning of September 10. Plane spotters using online flight tracking software noticed one of two B-1Bs break away from its wingman and appear to head toward Guam sometime before 9:00 AM local time in Japan. The bombers, callsigns Mayan 21 and Mayan 22, were conducting a long-range Bomber Task Force mission in the region. Mayan 21 was the particular bomber that headed to Guam.
The KC-135 tanker involved in the incident, a T variant with the serial number 60-0344, callsign Pearl 11, was also then tracked as it headed toward Yokota and declared an inflight emergency, which turned out to be the broken boom.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/kc-135-boom-down-emergency-landing-was-result-of-incident-with-b-1/ar-AA11Nl4W?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=89b91410e72b4526bc7c03ffb93ec4ad
