The engine that fell off a B-52 bomber this week over North Dakota “disintegrated” and is sitting at the bottom of a river bed, the Air Force secretary said on Friday.
Secretary Deborah Lee James said the incident is still under investigation, but noted that early findings suggest that the engine suffered a catastrophic failure, “seemingly disintegrated” and fell off. Its location at the bottom of a river bed will make it more difficult to recover, but James said officials will still try to retrieve it to collect more information about what caused the accident. No one was hurt.
She also stressed that the fleet of eight-engine bombers is still safe to fly and praised the pilots for landing the plane.
James provided the update on the incident during her last public remarks as Air Force secretary Friday morning at an Air Force Association breakfast in Arlington, Va.
During her speech, she also gave several program updates and had some advice for her successor on where he or she should focus attention.
- Several programs will hit key milestones in 2017. Lockheed Martin’s F-35 variant for the Air Force is still on track to go on its first overseas deployments this year. The Air Force is also expected to receive its first KC-46 tanker, built by Boeing, this fall. And a final request for proposal on the UH-1 Huey helicopter replacement modernization program is expected to be released “within the next month or two,” James said.
- The preferred location for the Air Force’s new drone base will be announced “in the next couple weeks,” James said. Basing the service’s remotely piloted aircraft in an additional location will help with quality-of-life concerns for drone operators, and also with retention problems in that community.
- James announced the creation of the Air Force Digital Services Team, which she jokingly called the “Nerd Cyber SWAT Team.” This small team of people, brought in from the private sector for six to 12 months, will work on designing new software and help troubleshoot when programs run into difficulty. They will be part of the broader Defense Department Digital Service and James said you won’t be able to miss them: “We’re all dressed like this in the Pentagon, and they walk around in jeans and hoodies.”
- To her successor, James said that he or she must continue to look for efficiencies, but must be prepared to spend an “enormous amount of time and political capital” to get larger savings, since all the low-hanging fruit has already been picked. Specifically, she talked about the need for another round of base realignment and closure, but noted that Congress has so far been unwilling to allow the Pentagon to carry that out.
- James also urged lawmakers to do something about lifting the Budget Control Act sooner rather than later in the 115th Congress. “Stop talking about it, take a page out of Nike and just do it,” she said.
- The secretary also said new accession policies are coming to the Air Force next week. She said the service is “opening up the aperture” on tattoos and some medical conditions to allow the Air Force to recruit from a wider pool of people and ensure it’s getting the best talent.
