A faulty hydraulic system caused one of the Air Force’s most advanced stealth bombers to crash and burn at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, in 2022, destroying the $2 billion aircraft and cutting the B-2 fleet to 19.
Investigators said a failed valve in the landing gear system kept the bomber’s left gear from locking during touchdown, sending the 170-foot-wide “Spirit of Hawaii” skidding more than a mile down the runway on its wing before erupting in flames. The Dec. 10 accident caused more than $300 million in damage to the aircraft and shut down Whiteman’s sole runway for 10 days, though both pilots escaped unharmed.
The Dec. 10, 2022, incident occurred as the aircraft, call sign DEATH 12, returned from a training mission. According to the Accident Investigation Board report released Aug. 5, a failure in a truck position sequence valve coupling prevented the left landing gear from locking in place.
When the aircraft touched down, the gear collapsed, sending the bomber skidding more than 9,000 feet down the runway on its left wing. The wingtip scraped the ground, rupturing a surge fuel tank that caught fire and triggered explosions in the outboard fuel tank.
The report said both pilots acted properly in the final minutes, reacting to hydraulic system warnings and executing an emergency gear extension. Although cockpit indications showed all three landing gears were down and locked, a design vulnerability allowed the lock link assembly to move out of position, relaxing pressure on the left gear. The board cited the flaw as a contributing factor, along with the sequence valve coupling failure.
No one was injured in the crash, but the fire destroyed much of the bomber’s left side and caused $27,500 in runway damage. The mishap closed Whiteman’s only runway for 10 days and paused full B-2 flight operations for more than five months while the fleet was inspected.
Firefighting efforts were delayed when the incident commander initially ordered the use of water instead of aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF), believing the foam was only for last-resort use.
That misunderstanding, which persisted for about three and a half minutes, allowed the fire to spread. The board found that earlier use of AFFF would not have substantially reduced the damage, but noted the delay, the failure of one fire truck to start, and uncertainty about foam safety on the B-2’s stealth materials hindered the response. AFFF, which contains PFAS “forever chemicals,” is being phased out across the military but remains authorized for flammable liquid fires.
The “Spirit of Hawaii” had received a landing gear update in June 2022 after a separate 2021 incident in which another B-2, “Spirit of Georgia,” suffered a landing gear collapse at Whiteman. The bomber completed 32 landings without issue between that maintenance and the 2022 accident. The report also documented 25 CryoFit coupling failures across the B-2 fleet, 10 of them affecting the main landing gear hydraulic circuit.
Each B-2 costs more than $2 billion, and Whiteman is the only base where the bombers are stationed. Following the loss of the “Spirit of Hawaii,” the Air Force’s operational fleet stands at 19 aircraft.
