This prototype B-1A #74-0159 crashed on August 29, 1984 ten miles northeast of Kramer Junction. The accident happened during a test flight for the B-1B program from Edwards Air Froce Base. Druing the flight, failure to manually transfer fuel caused the center of gravity limits to be exceeded when the wings were swept forward.

(Click on photos for a larger view.)

The drive was on dirt roads from Hwy 395 to reach the carsh site.

The crash site was marked with a small American flag. It was a memorial for the pilot that was killed in the accident.

The pilot was Maj. Richard V. Reynolds. The two other men on board, Rockwell test pilot Tommie D. Benefield and flight engineer Capt. Otto J. Waniczek survived the accident.

The first three B-1A prototypes were fitted with escape capsules. It was the partial failure of this system that caused the loss of the pilot.

This shot shows a escape capsule about to land on it's airbags during proof of concept trials. On #74-0159 it's parachutes opened, but a failure of the explosive repositioning bolts resulted in the capsule hitting in a nose-down attitude.

Not much of the large aircraft remains at the site today. I could see a few small pieces scattered around.

Someone made a pile of pieces, the largest is about six inches long.

Started looking around the site to see what remained. I found a piece of steel with some melted aluminum attached.

This looks like a piece of kevlar with carbon fibre.