Airmen work on a B-52 Stratofortress at RAF Fairford, England, October 18, 2019. One of the planes deployed to England from Barksdale Air Force Base, La., lost a part during flight that landed in a garden in Brailes, England. (Philip Bryant/U.S. Air Force)
Airmen work on a B-52 Stratofortress at RAF Fairford, England, October 18, 2019. One of the planes deployed to England from Barksdale Air Force Base, La., lost a part during flight that landed in a garden in Brailes, England. (Philip Bryant/U.S. Air Force)
A piece of a U.S. Air Force B-52 lies in a woman's garden in Brailes, England, where it landed after falling off the plane on Oct. 23, 2019. The resident, who was inside her house, reported hearing a thud in her front garden and saw the metal aircraft part when she looked outside. ()
A gear door fell off a U.S. Air Force B-52 during a training mission over western England, narrowly missing a woman’s house as it crashed with a loud thud in her front yard.
The woman, who was inside her home in the village of Brailes, about 35 miles northeast of RAF Fairford, said it was “a miracle” no one was injured in the Oct. 23 incident, the Gloucestershire Live website reported.
“We are on a flight path here, but you never expect something like this to happen,” the woman said, asking not to be identified.
Four B-52 bombers from the 2nd Bomb Wing out of Barksdale Air Force Base, La., have been deployed to RAF Fairford since early October.
The part that fell in the woman’s garden, described by Gloucestershire Live as “a huge chunk of yellow metal,” was a wing tip gear door, a spokesman for the Air Force’s U.K.-based 501st Combat Support Wing said.
It fell off a B-52 Stratofortress “during a routine training mission over the area near Brailes” late in the afternoon last week, the statement said.
The part has been recovered from the woman’s garden by U.S. Air Force personnel and U.K. Defense Ministry police, and an investigation has been launched by the Air Force to determine why it fell off the plane, the statement said.
