A crew of military service members and government contractors were among the eight people killed when a B-52 Stratofortress crashed shortly after takeoff Monday in Southern California.
The plane took off at 11:20 a.m. on a routine test mission from Edwards Air Force Base, about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles. The plane was carrying eight people, though it typically flies with a crew of five, and was supporting a program to modernize the aging fleet.
Victims Identified
The Air Force released the names of all eight victims: Col. Gregory Watson, 53; Lt. Col. Gabriel Estrella, 40; retired Lt. Col. Miles Middleton, 50; Maj. Alexander Davis, 34; Maj. Robert Dee, 40; Maj. Brad Hovey, 35; Christopher Rischar, 41; and Jeromy Smith, 32.
Middleton worked for Boeing, and Watson, an Air Force reservist, was at his civilian job with Boeing at the time of the crash. Rischar, a flight test engineer, was an employee of defense contracting firm JT4.
Smith, a civilian flight test engineer for the Department of Defense, had worked at Edwards for 10 years and was the father of two young sons – a 2-year-old and an infant just 4 months old, his wife, Lauren Smith, said.
The couple had marked their fourth wedding anniversary days before the crash, she said.
Original reporting: KRDO (Colorado Springs metro) — read the source article.
