WASHINGTON (AP) - An Air Force B-1B bomber flying a long-range combat mission to Afghanistan crashed in the Indian Ocean Wednesday. A Navy ship pulled all four crew members to safety.
The B-1B was the first U.S. airplane lost in the war in Afghanistan, which entered its 67th day Wednesday. Air Force B-1Bs and B-52s have made almost daily bombing runs over Afghanistan from the start; in recent weeks they have been pounding al-Qaida mountain hide-outs in the Tora Bora region.
The plane’s captain pilot said his bomber suffered multiple malfunctions - which he declined to discuss in detail - which caused it to go ``out of control.'' He ruled out hostile fire as a cause for the bomber's malfunctions.
The most recent previous B-1B crash, in 1998, occurred when a fire in the cockpit instrument panel shut down the plane's power over Kentucky. All four crew members ejected safely.
Pentagon officials said the B-1B was about 100 miles north of Diego Garcia en route to Afghanistan when the crew declared an in-flight emergency.
The bomber headed back toward Diego Garcia in hope of landing there, but 15 minutes after declaring an emergency the crew decided they had to eject.
Diego Garcia is about 2,500 miles from Afghanistan.
The Air Force estimates the cost of a B-1B at 280 million.
Since 1984, when the first production model flew in testing, 17 people have been killed in B-1B crashes. The plane was conceived in the 1970s as a nuclear bomber but was canceled in 1977. Flight testing of four B-1A models continued, and the improved B-1B variant was initiated by the Reagan administration in 1981.
The B-1B flew its first combat mission in Iraq in December 1998.