Thread:Comments:US bomber aircraft catches fire after landing at airbase in Qatar/B1 Bomber explodes upon landing at Al Udeid AB, Qatar

Seems this story needs to be corrected. Out of all the articles on numerous news outlets, not one was completely correct from that day forward. I’ll do my best to bring out the details so you can imagine as you read. On April 4 2008, we were about a quarter into our 8 month deployment. Our shift started like any other day, loading weapons onto several B1-Bomber Aircraft according to its upcoming mission. During this deployment we loaded JDAMS, JASSM, MK-82, and several other loads. Around 9:10 PM, 2110 Military Time, got word one of our aircraft were inbound. Usually at that time as we did in this instance we’re told it wasn’t a Winchester, meaning aircraft didn’t drop any bombs on the mission it’s returning from. We watched on as the aircraft came gliding in, witch was real smooth like most landing. Soon as we observed it landing and and beginning to slow down using its breaks we could see the smoke arising. As a couple of us at that moment begun to think something was going on, we noticed the aircraft never came to a stop till it came in contact with aircraft barriers. At this point we see smoke and fire bellowing out the sides of the weapons bays.

Hold this thought would like to rewind back a couple days prior.

After the entire incident occurred it began to come to mind that couple of the weapons crews noticed days prior this exact aircraft had hydraulic oil all on the inner walls of the weapons bays. Good bit of the airman had reported this up the chain of command during that time.

Back to the day of incident, as we watch the incident unfolding we begin to see the flares popping off which are also loaded by weapons troops into the B1 Aircraft. Several minutes later, one by one the JDAMS which were loaded prior to taking off on a mission began to explode. There were 24 JDAMS onboard. As far as how many exploded, it was hard to come up with the count. Some exploding about the same time some didn’t. From where we were in relation to the exploding aircraft, was on the flight line where the aircraft eventually return once it taxis back to its spot. With each explosion, piercing our ears, we watched in disbelief. According to local reports at the time, the explosions could be heard in the outskirts of Doha, Qatar which is 35km from Al Udeid.

Information coming from within our unit was the aircraft landed with hot breaks which caught the hydraulic fluid on fire and in turn set fire inside the weapons bays.