Fatal Failure to Check the Gas

The B-1A bomber had already started to dive toward the Mojave Desert when a chase plane radioed to Co-Pilot Doug Benefield, "How are you doing, Doug?" Replied Benefield: "We may have to punch it. We have to punch." Those were his last known words. Command Pilot Richard Reynolds pulled the eject handle, flinging the cock pit and its three-man crew free of the plane just 9 sec. before it slammed into the ground. Two of the men escaped with injuries.

But Benefield, 55, chief test pilot for Rockwell International Corp., which builds the bomber, died of severe head wounds.

The Air Force has announced the cause of the Aug. 29 crash: human error. As the plane's movable wings were swung forward for a low-altitude test, Benefield apparently forgot to switch on a mechanism that shifts fuel among various tanks. The B-lA's center of gravity thus stayed toward the tail, causing the bomber to rear up at a 70DEG angle, stall and tumble earthward.

Benefield's death, however, was the result of faulty equipment. One of three explosive bolts designed to reposition the escape capsule for a bottom-first landing on airbags failed to fire, causing the cockpit to hit the ground nose first.