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The Base Operations building at Edwards Air Force Base, California, is seen in a file photo from 2017.
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The Base Operations building at Edwards Air Force Base, California, is seen in a file photo from 2017. (Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images)

ALERT: Massive B-52 Stratofortress Has Crashed at Edwards Air Force Base - Video

 By Joe Saunders  June 15, 2026 at 3:22pm
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A venerable aircraft of the U.S. military and a historic site for the U.S. Air Force combined Monday for potentially tragic news story out of California.

A B-52 bomber known as a Statofortress crashed shortly after takeoff at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, according to The Associated Press.

There was no immediate information about whether the crew survived.

The crash took place about 11:20 a.m. Pacific Times, according to the AP.

By just before 1 p.m., the base announced that the airfield was closed and “non-commercial visitor passes have been suspended until further notice to allow the installation to focus entirely on emergency response operations.”

The B-52 typically holds a crew of five, but there was no information about how many were aboard the crashed jet.

The B-52 has been a mainstay of U.S. air power since 1955.

Related:
Breaking: Pentagon Locked Down as Hazmat Teams Swarm to Building

Capable of carrying either conventional or nuclear weapons, it has been a key part of military air operations in conflicts ranging from Vietnam to the current fighting in the Middle East, the AP noted.

Edwards Air Force Base, meanwhile, is one of the most famous in the country’s history.

Among other events, it was the site where the legendary pilot Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in a Bell X-1 rocket engine aircraft.

In 1981, it was the landing site of the first Space Shuttle, Columbia, after its maiden voyage.

On Monday, however, it was the scene of emergency vehicles and the potential deaths of an American Air Force crew.

According to Fox News, the most recent B-52 lost in a crash was at Anderson Air Force Base in Guam in 2016.

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Joe Saunders
Story Editor
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro desk editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He's been with Liftable Media since 2015.
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He's been with Liftable Media since 2015. Largely a product of Catholic schools, who discovered Ayn Rand in college, Joe is a lifelong newspaperman who learned enough about the trade to be skeptical of every word ever written. He was also lucky enough to have a job that didn't need a printing press to do it.
Birthplace
Philadelphia
Nationality
American




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