On June 8, 1966, while test flying the monstrously expensive XB-70 Valkyrie, the U.S. Air Force managed to knock the Mach 3 bomber from the sky when an F-104 “chase” plane got a little too close and bumped into it, resulting in the crash of both aircraft and the death of 2 pilots and severe injury to another. The XB-70 had cost about $750 million to develop and build, quite a fortune in those days. Military history is rife with such blunders, miscalculations and general screw ups. Here we list 10 such incidents in no particular order. Note: The military term SNAFU is an acronym for “Situation Normal, All Fouled Up!”
Digging Deeper
10. XB-70, Crash, 1966.
This costly high-tech bomber could fly at an altitude of over 70,000 feet and at a speed of over Mach 3, but it could be shot down by the latest Soviet anti-aircraft missiles and the MiG-25 Foxbat that had been specifically developed for this purpose. The test flight on which the plane crashed was actually only a photo opportunity that had been staged to photograph the fancy bomber flying alongside 4 jet planes. Only 2 prototypes were ever built; the surviving one is located at the U.S. Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB outside of Dayton, Ohio.
