Broken B-1B Flown Home

How many airmen does it take to get a broken B-1B Lancer bomber out of Afghanistan? Hundreds from veteran pilots who flew the crippled bomber to maintainers who pulled out the damaged engine. On Aug. 26 a B-1B bomber made an emergency landing at Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan after the jets No. 4 engine caught fire. While investigators set about to discover what went wrong, teams from Air Force Materiel Command were summoned to figure how to get the $238 million bomber out of Afghanistan and to a friendlier location where the aircraft could be repaired. The plan to fly the B-1B on engines out of Kandahar finally got a green light. The jet took off Oct. 2 for a one-stop flight that eventually landed in England, where Air Force teams are working to make the plane fully airworthy.