Breaking: B-1b bomber crashes in Montana - crew ejects.

EKALAKA - A United State Air Force B-1 bomber crashed on Monday morning in a remote area of southeast Montana but the crew of four escaped with minor injuries.

According a spokesperson with Ellsworth Air Force Base in Rapid City, South Dakota, the crash happened near Broadus in Carter County.

Residents of Ekalaka tell is that the emergency sirens in that town were activated between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. to alert the volunteer fire department of the crash.

The Carter County Sheriff's Office has also confirmed that it is responding to the crash as well.

Ekalaka residents say many neighboring ranchers reported seeing several parachutes deploy from the plane and an explosion before the plane crashed.

Ranchers have told the residents there has been a plume of smoke rising into the sky.

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Col. Kevin Kennedy, 28th Bomb Wing commander, said "We are actively working to ensure the safety of the crew members and have sent first responders to secure the scene and work closely with local authorities at the crash site. "Right now all of our thoughts and prayers are with the crews and their families."

Ellsworth AFB is the home of the 28th Bomb Wing. They maintain and fly 28 B-1 bombers and are home to two of the Air Forces's three B-1 combat squadrons. There are roughly 60 B-1's in the U.S. Air Force fleet.


A Federal Aviation Administration map of temporary flight restrictions (TFR) shows a very large restricted area encompassing corners of Montana, Wyoming and North and South Dakota. The closed air space is 240 miles in diameter and extends to an altitude of 23,000 feet. The site says the TFR is in effect until further notice.

"FDC 3/2131 ZLC WY.. FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS POWDER RIVER, WY. EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. PURSUANT TO 14 CFR SECTION 91.137(A)(1) TEMPORARY FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS ARE IN EFFECT FOR AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT ONLY RELIEF AIRCRAFT OPERATIONS UNDER DIRECTION OF ELLSWORTH APPROACH ARE AUTHORIZED IN THE AIRSPACE AT AND BELOW FL230 WITHIN A 15 NAUTICAL MILE RADIUS OF 453315N/1044055W OR THE BUFFALO /BUA/ VOR/DME 260 DEGREE RADIAL AT 51.6 NAUTICAL MILES ELLSWORTH APPROACH TELEPHONE 605-385-6199 OR FREQ 296.7 IS IN CHARGE OF ON SCENE EMERGENCY RESPONSE ACTIVITY. SALT LAKE /ZLC/ ARTCC TELEPHONE 801-320-2560 IS THE FAA COORDINATION FACILITY."

The B-1 entered service in 1986 as a successor to the B-52 bomber and is designed to fly at high speeds and low levels in order to avoid radar detection. It is a variable-sweep wing strategic bomber. Only 100 were produced, with 67 still in service.

The bomber is 146 feet long and has a wingspan of 137 feet with the wings extended or 79 feet swept back.

Photos:  Powder River Examiner:

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Aerial photos of the crash show a massive charred area of prairie land void of recognizable aircraft parts.

"No one likes to lose an aircraft. It's bittersweet that we did," Kennedy said during a news conference Monday afternoon. "Luckily, all four air crew are safely recovered."

Ellsworth has 28 of the planes, including the one that crashed, the Air Force said.

Kennedy said Ellsworth has temporarily shut down flights until his maintenance and operations group commanders can ensure that they can safely resume.

Only one part is recognizable as belonging to a B-1B
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AREA 51 acknowledged - tell us something we don't know

North Korean missiles are all show and no go ...

By Robert Windrem and M.L. Flynn, NBC News

PYONGYANG, North Korea -- Missiles paraded through the streets of Pyongyang in recent displays of North Korean military might --  said to be capable of hitting targets throughout Asia and even in the U.S. -- are incapable of flight and are almost certainly nothing more than fakes, according to U.S. government experts and independent analysts. 

"My opinion is that it's a big hoax," Markus Schiller, an aerospace engineer in Munich and former RAND Corp. military analyst, said of the intercontinental and medium-range missiles displayed in the North Korean capital in April 2012 and again two weeks ago. 

U.S. government experts, having reviewed unclassified images from the most recent parade on July 27, including high-resolution photos provided by NBC News, agreed. “Our assessment is that what we are looking at is most likely simulators used for training purposes,” according to a statement to NBC News.

The experts, who spoke on condition of anonymity, would not discuss the methods used to make their determination. 

U.S. and other Western officials have recently expressed concerns over North Korea’s advances in building nuclear weaponry, but many are doubtful that its secretive missile program is capable of delivering such weapons outside a limited area in east Asia. 

“That the guy in charge seems to have been purged is the clearest indication we’ve seen so far that they’re having some problems,” said Alexandre Mansourov, a Korea expert and visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University. 

There also are signs that the missile program may be in disarray, including a failed attempt to launch a satellite in April 2012 and the recent disappearance from public view of Pak To-Ch’un, the Politburo member who managed North Korea's weapons production, including its missiles. 

A spokesman for North Korea's U.N. Mission in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment. NBC News asked U.S. government experts and independent military analysts, in the U.S. and overseas, to examine high-resolution images of the Musudan medium-range missile and the ICBM, known as the Hwasong-13, taken at the July 27 military parade. 

The consensus: The displayed missiles were built for show, not for flight. 

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE

Mobile laser breakthrough to be tested at White Sands

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By Kevin Robinson-Avila / Journal Staff Writer | 14 hours ago

Copyright © 2013 Albuquerque Journal

Boeing Co.’s Directed Energy Systems division in Albuquerque has developed a solid-state laser system that eventually could be used by the U.S. military to destroy IEDs, shoot down rockets and take out drones.

“Our team has shown that we have the necessary power, the beam quality and the efficiency to deliver such a system to the battlefield,” said Michael Rinn, the Directed Energy Systems division’s vice president and program director.

The company said a recent demonstration here of its “thin disk laser system” – which integrates a series of high-power industrial lasers to generate one concentrated, high-energy beam – exceeded the Defense Department’s technical requirements for potential use in weapons systems.

The new system was developed in part through a $6 million contract under the DOD’s Robust Electric Laser Initiative. That program aims to design new solid-state lasers to replace chemical-based ones, which can be more complicated to deploy.

“Chemical lasers involve hard-to-handle chemicals and require cumbersome procedures for soldiers, whereas the ones under development are closed-loop, all-electronic systems, making them more mobile and supportable on the battlefield,” Rinn said.

Boeing will now seek DOD funding to package the laser system into a design that can be mounted on weapons such as a conventional deck gun on a Navy warship.

“This is still lab technology for now, so we hope to get government funding to take it forward,” Rinn said. “It remains to be seen if the Army picks this over other solid-state lasers being developed.”

Rinn said the new system meets the test of achieving high brightness while simultaneously remaining efficient at higher power.

The technology basically combines individual, commercial lasers used by industry to create a much more powerful beam that can be applied for weapon use, Rinn said.

Boeing worked to retain the reliability and efficiency demonstrated in the original laser heads, which run continuously in industrial applications, while increasing the power and improving the beam. The company needed to reach 30 percent electricity-to-laser efficiency.

“We produced a 30 kilowatt laser with 90 kilowatts of electricity,” Rinn said. “Those are the military-utility-class numbers needed, and we achieved it.”

READ THE REST OF THE STORY AT THE ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL 

UPS jumbo jet crashes in Alabama

A UPS jumbo cargo plane with at least two people aboard crashed early Wednesday just outside the fence of the Birmingham, Ala., airport, and FAA official confirmed.

A UPS that the plane was a UPS A-300 Airbus, tail number N155UP, with two crew members aboard. The flight originated in Louisville, Ky., and crashed upon its approach in Birmingham. UPS said the crew has not been located.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the crew," the spokesman said.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen told The Associated Press that the plane crashed before dawn Wednesday. Debris was still smoldering and the nose of the plane was detached from the body.

Toni Bast, a spokeswoman for Birmingham's airport authority, said the cargo plane crashed near Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport. Bast said the crash site is outside the airport's perimeter fence and has not affected airport operations.

Few other details were immediately available. The plane appears to have crashed in an isolated field and a plume of smoke was seen rising from the site. Teams of emergency crews responded to the crash.

Bergen says she had no information on injuries.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it was deploying a Go-Team from Washington, D.C., to investigate the crash.

The scene is about a half-mile north of Runway 18. At 7 a.m. Wednesday, conditions in the area were rainy with low clouds.

Previously, a UPS cargo plane crashed on Sept. 3, 2010, in the United Arab Emirates, just outside Dubai. Both pilots were killed. Authorities there blamed the crash on its load of between 80,000 to 90,000 lithium batteries, which are sensitive to temperature. Investigators found that a fire on board likely began in the cargo containing the batteries.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/08/14/ups-cargo-plane-crashes-near-alabama-airport/#ixzz2bwtBxbmb