LOS ANGELES, June 15 (Reuters) – A U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bomber crashed on Monday shortly after takeoff from Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California’s Mojave Desert, the base said.
Aerial video footage of the crash scene, about 100 miles (161 km) north of Los Angeles, showed a charred, smoldering patch of the desert floor roughly the size of a football field as an emergency vehicle drove along the perimeter of the site.
There were no large pieces of debris readily visible in the footage.
“Emergency crews immediately responded to the scene and the situation is ongoing,” the base wrote in a post on X.
The multi-engine jet bomber crashed “shortly after takeoff on the Edwards airfield at 11:20 a.m.,” the base said in the official alert on X.
There was no immediate word on the number of crew members aboard the plane, or on whether anyone survived.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Phil Stewart in Washington; Additional reporting by Costas Pitas and Jasper Ward; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
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