In a development that has left the good people of California slightly more rattled than a martini shaken by a gorilla, a United States B-52 Stratofortress decided to turn itself into a very expensive, very loud lawn dart somewhere over the Golden State. Eight souls, presumably including at least one pilot who had had enough of the endless circling over a world gone mad, have perished. The Pentagon, that great, grey, bureaucratic beast, is now performing its sacred ritual: the ‘Looking Into It’ dance. One imagines a room full of generals, their chests heavy with medals and their brains heavy with lunch, promising to ‘leave no stone unturned’ while simultaneously hoping the whole thing will be forgotten by the next news cycle.
But let us not mince words, gentle reader. This is not a crash. This is a statement. A B-52 is not a Cessna, and it does not simply ‘fall out of the sky’ unless the sky itself has decided it is no longer welcome. The aircraft, a relic of the Cold War that has been kept aloft by duct tape, prayers, and the desperate hope that we might still need to bomb the Soviet Union, has finally said, ‘Enough is enough.’ It has joined the great beyond, taking with it the lives of eight Americans and the smug certainty of the military-industrial complex.
The cause? Ah, the cause. The Pentagon, with the eloquence of a man trying to explain why he has been caught in a brothel, has said something about ‘mechanical failure’ and ‘pilot error’ and ‘acts of God.’ But we know better, don’t we? We know that this is the result of decades of underfunding, of over-reliance on technology that was designed when men wore hats and women wore gloves, and of a culture that values shiny new missiles over the maintenance of the ones we have. A B-52 costs a pretty penny, but apparently not enough pennies to ensure that it can fly without spontaneously rearranging itself into a crater.
Meanwhile, the families of the deceased are left to mourn, and we are left to wonder: when will we stop treating our armed forces like a game of Battleship? When will we realise that these machines are not toys, that the men and women who fly them are not expendable? The Pentagon will launch an investigation, write a report that no one will read, and then order new bombers that will cost a billion dollars each and still break down. It is the circle of life, American style.
Thus, we raise a glass of gin to the eight who fell. May your final flight have been swift, and may the Pentagon’s inquiry be as thorough as a politician’s apology. In other news, the weather. But let’s be honest, nothing will change. Not until a B-52 crashes into the Pentagon itself. And even then, they’d probably blame the Russians.
