On the Ground

As it neared the end of a routine flight one day last week, a B-52 jet bomber from California's Castle Air Force Base went into a steepening glide over the San Joaquin Valley. Fire burst from its right wing, and near the town of Madera, 40 miles short of its home base, the big plane plummeted to earth. Five crewmen died; two, the pilot and another officer, parachuted to safety.

The next day the Air Force, for the second time in less than eight months, grounded all its $8,000,000, 600-m.p.h. B-52s, said they would stay that way until investigators had determined the cause of the crash. Preliminary evidence indicated an electrical-system failure, which was also blamed for the mid-air explosion of another Castle-based B-52 last February, which resulted in a ten-day grounding.

Last week's crash was not expected to slow the buildup of the nation's B-52 fleet to 600-900 planes by 1958. Nor did the grounding seriously weaken U.S. defenses. Still in the air were the Air Force's venerable B-36s and shorter-ranged but strategically based B-47s. B-52 crews, moreover, continued to report for around-the-clock duty, and on the flight lines their ships stood combat-ready, their engines tested, their fuel tanks full. "In any need or emergency," said the Air Force, "the B-52s will fly."

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