1987 Fairchild Air Force Base Boeing KC-135 crash

The 1987 Fairchild Air Force Base Boeing KC-135 crash occurred on 13 March 1987. On that day, the pilots of the United States Air Force Boeing KC-135A Stratotanker (60-0361) lost control of the aircraft, which then crashed to the ground, killing all six people on board the aircraft and one on the ground.

Accident sequence

On that day, the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker 60-0361 together with a Boeing B-52 were to rehearse flight manoeuvres for an upcoming 15-minute air show on the air show day at Fairchild Air Force Base. The show was to be the debut of a new aerobatic team called the Thunderhawks, which had been assembled by General John T. Chain Jr., the commander-in-chief of Strategic Air Command (SAC). The aim of the air show was to demonstrate the capabilities of SAC's large aircraft through a series of spectacular manoeuvres, which were to include low-altitude aerial refuelling, flying turns at high bank angles, and flybys along the runway. Colonel Thomas J. Harris, commander of the 92nd Bombardment Wing at Fairchild Air Force Base, had been tasked in December 1986 with establishing and training the Thunderhawks.

On that day, at 13:20, the Boeing KC-135 and the Boeing B-52 took off in immediate succession from runway 23 of Fairchild Air Force Base, with the tanker taking off after the bomber. After takeoff, the KC-135 was flown in a steep left turn when the intended bank angle of 45 degrees suddenly increased to almost 90 degrees and the two left engines failed. Although the crew managed to recover the aircraft to a level attitude, the altitude and airspeed were too low to prevent a crash. The KC-135 came down in a field north of the runway behind three large hangars, narrowly missing the offices of the base's bomber and refuelling units. The wreckage slid through a security fence across an access road and struck the car of 41-year-old Senior Master Sergeant Paul W. Hamilton of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, himself a member of the Thunderhawks, who had decided not to fly that day and wanted to watch the flight manoeuvres sitting in his car. The aircraft then slid a further 200 metres, collided with an unmanned weather radar tower and burst into flames. During the slide, the tail section, the wings, engines and landing gear separated from the fuselage. A wing that was torn off by the collision with the radar tower landed 50 metres beyond the burning wreckage.