The U.S. Air Force at Edwards Air Force Base was in the process of tests to upgrade the aging fleet of B-52 bombers with new engines and radar systems when one of the planes crashed Monday, killing eight people, officials said.

The tests, and planned upgrades for the bomber, are just the latest in what has been long history for the plane that has undergone more than half a dozen transformations and has remained in the U.S. arsenal for more than 70 years.

The B-52 is considered a legendary workhorse, remaining a key part of the military’s fleet for decades thanks to constant improvements to the planes.

It’s still unclear what caused the deadly crash at Edwards Air Force Base just after 11 a.m., sending a huge plume of smoke from the base. In a press conference, Col. James Hayes said the B-52 that crashed was supporting a “radar modernization program.”

Edwards Air Force Base officials confirmed the plane crashed shortly after take-off of a “routine test mission.” They declined to identify the victims until the next of kin had been notified.

The airfield remained closed Tuesday after a night of crews fighting small start-up fires in the area.

Air Force officials announced in May and December that B-52s would be undergoing testing at Edwards Air Force Base as the Department of Defense looked to upgrade the plane’s engines and radar.

Efforts to upgrade and create a new version of the iconic B-52 bomber have been ongoing for decades, making it a constant presence in the country’s armed conflicts from the Vietnam War to the Gulf and Iraq wars.

“Some of these airplanes are literally twice the age of the pilots who fly them,” said Ross Aimer, a retired United Airlines pilot and CEO of Aero Consulting Experts. But, he added, “if you take care of an airplane, you can fly them forever, basically.”

In December, Air Force officials announced a B-52 Stratofortress was ferried from Boeing’s San Antonio facility to Edwards Air Force Base after it was equipped with a new radar system. The aircraft, according to the statement, was set to undergo a series of tests throughout 2026.

The Air Force has not said whether that was the B-52 that crashed.

In May, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center announced that Boeing was moving to modify two B-52H aircraft in its San Antonio facility. The plan was to replace the planes’ 1960s-era TF33 engines with F130 Rolls-Royce engines — and test them at Edwards Air Force Base.

Pentagon officials referred questions to the U.S. Air Force. U.S. Air Force officials and officials at Edwards Air Force Base did not immediately respond to inquiries Tuesday.

As of November 2025, the Air Force’s fleet of B-52s were assigned to the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, the 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and the Air Force Reserve Command’s 307th Bomb Wing also at Barksdale, according to the Air Force.

But some of the Air Force’s B-52 fleet was taken to Edwards Air Force Base for testing.

Military officials have not released details of those who were onboard during the crash but, in a statement, Boeing confirmed two of its employees were among crew.

As it happens, test teams are sometimes accompanied by contractors, so they can ask questions about the technology, said Brian Sinclair, a retired Navy test pilot who graduated from the Air Force’s Test Pilot School and now runs consulting firm 3WIRE Solutions.

“Edwards, for the Air Force, is the heart of developmental testing,” he said.

When Sinclair flew F-18s in Iraq, he said he would often see B-52s flying over him.

“They just have an incredible payload capacity,” Sinclair said. “They can drop large amounts of ordnance and they can also carry said ordnance very far.”

The first B-52, known as the B-52A, first flew in 1954 but, for more than 70 years, the heavy bomber has undergone a series of modifications and improvements.

It has a range of 8,000 miles but, because it can refuel in the air, the craft can stay in flight for much longer. According to the U.S. Air Force, it also has a payload capacity of 70,000 pounds.

As of November, a total of 58 B-52Hs are in the military’s active force, with another 18 in reserve, according to the U.S. Air Force.

“Even though the airframe from the original concept is quite old, the Air Force has stayed up with modifications,” said J. F. Joseph, a retired airline pilot and U.S. Marine Corps colonel who oversees Joseph Aviation Consulting.

Aimer said the plane’s longevity is evidence of its importance to the Air Force: “It worked from Day One for the mission that it was designed for and it does a fantastic job,” he said. “It carries so much ordnance, so many bombs that we never could replace it.”

Still, other aviation experts said the continual efforts to modify the B-52 suggests more robust and consistent military funding is needed.

“We’re asking airmen to strap into jets that their grandfathers, fathers and now they are flying, and it is time for a reset,” said Doug Birkey, executive director of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

Described by the U.S. Air Force as the “backbone of the manned strategic bomber force for the United States,” the B-52 Stratofortress has been a vital aircraft for the country’s armed conflicts.

According to the Air Force, B-52 Stratofortresses delivered 40% of all the weapons dropped by coalition forces during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. It was also used to hit wide-area troop concentrations and bunkers.

Two B-52H’s were also used to hit Baghdad’s power stations and communications facilities in 1996 during Operation Desert Strike, using air-launched cruise missiles. That mission, according to the Air Force, was the longest distance flown for a combat mission at the time, with the planes making a 16,000-mile round trip from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana for the 34-hour flight.

The B-52 was brought back again for Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001, providing close air support as it hovered above the battlefield, according to the U.S. Air Force.

During Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, it launched about 100 missiles during a single night mission.

Officials said Monday’s crash took place immediately upon takeoff.

Such low-altitude emergencies are particularly dangerous because planes are typically heavy with fuel and crews have little time to react given how close they are to the ground and how slow they are moving, Aimer said.

“It’s probably the worst time for any major failure to happen, for them to control it,” Aimer said.

The deadly crash marked what aviation experts told The Times was an otherwise robust safety record for the seasoned plane. Before Monday, the most recent incident involving a B-52 occurred in Guam in 2016, after the aircraft overran the runway and crashed. In 2008, another B-52 crashed off the coast of Guam, killing six.

In 1982, a B-52 also crashed outside of Sacramento Mather Air Force Base, killing nine people onboard.

Our search for technosignatures – clear signs of advanced civilizations beyond Earth – takes many forms. Many are driven by the famous Drake equation, which attempts to estimate how many technological civilizations there are in the Milky Way. However, there’s a big fat question mark at the end of that equation in the form of a variable intended to account for the “longevity” of a civilization. And to be clear, that doesn’t mean how long the civilization itself survives. It simply means how long it actively creates a signature that is detectable by our current technology. A new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv from Oxford astrophysicist Brian C. Lacki, argues that, since the chances of us overlapping in time with any such civilization are miniscule, we’re much more likely to find the ruins of a “dead” civilization – and, surprisingly, the best place to do so might be in our own solar system.

A fundamental part of this argument is driven by Earth’s own history. Up until now, SETI has focused on receiving “passive” signals from beyond the solar system, typically in the form of radio waves. However, even on Earth, our own “window” of sending radio signals into the vastness of space only lasted for around 100 years. We are actively eliminating most wide-broadcast radio signals in an effort to improve our communications infrastructure. So, in other words, even our own civilization isn’t bothering to maintain what minimal intentional broadcasts we were producing 50 years ago.

Instead, the argument goes, it’s better to find “passive” technosignatures, such as relics that require literally no upkeep and can last for billions of years. That would eliminate the need for “constant maintenance” of a radio transmitter or high-powered laser, and would make us much more likely to find the types of civilization that could, at least at one point in time, support that.

Fraser discusses our current search for technosignatures.

So what would such a “passive technosignature” look like in practice? Dr. Lacki breaks them down into three categories – diffusers, occulters, and glinters. From our perspective, occulters would be visible from its unnatural dimming pattern, which would appear similar to a transiting exoplanet, but clearly not the same. Glinters, on the other hand, feature gigantic mirrors that can focus or reflect starlight over thousands of light years, appearing as anomalous “lens flares” near their host star. Diffusers scatter light nearly isotropically, creating a faint signal that might reflect an unusual color or polarization.

Any of these systems is entirely passive, and requires no active role from their creators whatsoever. However, simply building enough of them will indeed require some form of maintenance. A Dyson Swarm is certainly within the capabilities of the types of civilizations being considered in this paper, but maintaining the orbital mechanics of such a swarm does involve active intervention, even though it’d be much less than an active radio transmitter.

Without such support, the components that make up the Dyson swarm would inevitably be drawn together via gravity, eventually colliding and creating what Dr. Lacki calls “technograins”. This destruction could even be accelerated by a “chain reaction” effect similar to Kessler syndrome here in Earth’s orbit, with each additional collision creating yet more debris to create yet more collisions. Do this enough times and even an alien megastructure can be ground down to micron-scale dust.

Fraser talks technosignatures with Dr. Jacob Haqq-Misra

Once small enough, these technograins might gain a trip out of its host solar system by a solar wind that overcomes the star’s gravity holding it back. These motes of dust are then free to roam the galaxy, escaping any long term confinement to their host star. That’s where the other interesting idea from Dr. Lacki’s paper comes in.

Our solar system isn’t stationary in comparison to the galaxy. As it orbits the Milky Way, it routinely sweeps through interstellar material, some of which might be made up of pulverized technosignatures. Even if that material swept into our galaxy billions of years ago, inactive worlds like the Moon could preserve it from that original time all the way down to now. In other words, researchers could screen Moon dust for signatures of extinct megastructures.

Ultimately, what the paper points out is that we don’t need bigger and better space telescopes to continue our search for technosignatures. Instead we might be able to find it by sifting through the regolith on our closest neighbor. And if we do find any, it will bring new meaning to the phrase “dust to dust” – since there will be a completely different form of intelligence handling the dust that came from a completely different civilization.

Learn More:

B. C. Lacki – Dust to Dust: Prospects for Passive Technosignatures as Relics of ETI

UT – Galaxies with High Radio Emissions Could be Home to Many Advanced Civilizations

UT – Breakthrough Listen Releases its one-of-Everything “Exotica” Catalog

UT – The SETI Institute Releases Technosignature Report on 3I/ATLAS