A B-2, serial number 89-0129, known as the “Spirit of Georgia,” made an emergency landing at MacDill AFB, Fla., following in-flight avionics and communications failures on April 23, officials announced on June 10. The B-2 pilots established communications with MacDill via civilian air traffic controllers at Tampa International Airport, but were unable to verify whether the aircraft’s landing gear was down. “We had all thought this was going to be a pretty easy emergency landing request until that moment,” MacDill air traffic controller SSgt. Charles Hildreth said in the release. “Now, we had a B-2 that might have to make a crash landing on our runway,” he added. The B-2 executed a low pass allowing controllers to verify its undercarriage was safely down, and base civil engineers were able to remove the runway arresting system in less than a quarter of the usual time, avoiding “catastrophic damage to the aircraft,” Hildreth said.
Boeing received a $2.47 billion Air Force contract Nov. 25 for 15 more KC-46s, bringing to 183 the number of Pegasus tankers on contract to all customers, foreign and domestic. The new contract—for Lot 12 of the initially planned KC-46 buy—is to be completed by 2029.
