Failure
of a brake metering valve caused a B-1B bomber to roll forward into two rescue vehicles after engine shutdown March 7 at Andersen AFB, Guam, according to Air Combat Command. In a Sept. 3 release, ACC said an accident investigation board determined that “malfunction of the right hand brake metering valve caused depletion of the associated brake system accumulators, rendering the aircraft’s brake systems inoperative when the engines shut down.” There were no injuries, but damage to the B-1B, which is assigned to the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth AFB, S.D., and the two firefighting vehicles totaled $5.8 million. Contributing factors included a slight taxiway declination, failure of the aircraft to be chocked in a timely manner, and the inability of the firefighting vehicles to get out of the way of the rolling B-1B, ACC said. (For more, read released portions of the AIB)
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.