Plane Down
B-1B Goes Down in Indian Ocean;
All Four Crew Members Rescued
Dec. 12 — A B-1B bomber went down in the Indian Ocean today near the island of Diego Garcia, but all four crew members were rescued and in good condition. There were no immediate details on why the plane went down.
All four of the crew members were picked up by rescuers about 60 miles north of Diego Garcia and were taken aboard the USS Russell, a Navy destroyer that was sent to the crash site, according to Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman.
"The crew is reportedly in good condition," Davis said.
The crew declared an in-flight emergency about 100 miles north of Diego Garcia, a British-controlled island from which the plane took off, Davis said. The crew was rescued at about 11:30 a.m. ET by the Russell, which had been sent to the scene along with a Navy P-3 Orion plane and an Air Force KC-10 aerial refueling plane.
It appeared that the crew had been in the water for two hours before they were rescued, Davis said.
It was the first fixed-wing U.S. warplane to go down since the United States began airstrikes against Afghanistan on Oct. 7. It was the first B-1B bomber to crash on a combat mission since the supersonic long-range bomber became operational in 1987.
Diego Garcia is in the central Indian Ocean, approximately 2,400 miles from the coast of Pakistan. U.S. warplanes have been flying missions from it since the airstrikes on Afghanistan began on Oct. 7.
"This underscores what we try to remember all the time — that the men and women in the U.S. military put their lives at risk every single day," Defense Department spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said. "And we're grateful."
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