i have around 4,000 hours in the B-52G and B-52H. Ask me anything!
One night when returning from the UTTR (in Utah) to KI Sawyer AFB, Michigan, there was a blizzard approaching the base. The ops group commander didn't want to divert us because billeting at (say) Wurtsmith AFB or Loring AFB was going to cost the wing too much money.
So, he sat in the Supervisor of Flying's Suburban and conducted Runway Condition Rating tests every 1000 feet of the runway right behind the snowplows. Once he got the number he needed, he cleared us to come in to land. We were #1 of about 7 or 8 bombers stacking up in holding above the base waiting for the runway RCR to be within limits. RCR measures traction on icy or wet runways.
The RCR had to be fairly high because there was a ~20 kt direct crosswind. So we needed like a 18 or 19 out of 23 on the RCR reading. We had 18, according to the colonel.
We set the crosswind crab (the wheels) 20 degrees left into the wind. When we landed, all fine and good, but you could tell we were basically on ice and our landing gear were the skates.
I deployed the drag chute because it didn't appear we were slowing fast enough. When the drag chute popped out, the B-52H weather vaned to the left fairly dramatically. I jettisoned the drag chute. Luckily the vertical stabilizer (the tail) was still effective and we were able to point the jet down the runway instead of running off the side. By the time we arrived at 6000 feet remaining, the jet had slowed to 60 knots. But it never slowed much after that. At 2000 remaining, we were still at 60 knots.
We crossed the threshold of the runway at the departure end and once both main gear were in the overrun, the jet abruptly stopped. We two pilots looked at each other and said the F word simultaneously. Sort of in shock, we reverted to our training and ran the normal engine shutdown checklist as the colonel ops group commander boarded our plane.
"What the hell did you guys do?," he asked, as if it was our fault.
The incident went down as a Class C mishap because 8 of the main tires had to be replaced -- around $30,000.
The cause of the crash was incorrect RCR reading. The colonel ops group commander who took that reading was a tanker pilot trying to save the wing money, so yeah. They computed the RCR to be a 3 or 4 with viscous hydroplaning due to urea being poured over the snow and ice when it was getting plowed. In chapter 7 of the B-52H Dash-11, there is a 3-page discussion about viscous hydroplaning that was added after the safety report on our mishap. They didn't mention any names (-;
The only thing we could have done better, in hindsight, was shut down engines 1,2,3 and 6,7,8 (the outboards) when we determined braking was nil. We were too task saturated on jettisoning drags chutes and steering the beast to remain on the runway.
Circa 1992.
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