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 were 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.
U.S. Southern Command recently announced its first lethal strike on a suspected narco-trafficking vessel in two months, and the first under a newly formed permanent counter-cartel task force. The U.S. is also reportedly planning to transfer MQ-9 drones to Colombia to bolster its counter-cartel efforts.