Date:	Monday 24 July 1989
Time:
Type:	Boeing B-52G-100-BW Stratofortress
Owner/operator:	2nd BWg USAF
Registration:	58-0190
MSN:	464258
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 0
Other fatalities:	1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Kelly AFB, San Antonio, Texas -   United States of America
Phase:	Standing
Nature:	Military
Departure airport:	Kelly AFB, TX
Destination airport:
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
B-52G s/n 58‑0190 of 2nd Bomb Wing at Kelly AFB, San Antonio, Texas. Destroyed by a ground explosion and fire during depot maintenance on July 24 1989: one worker killed and 11 injured.

Cause reported to be "near-catastrophic fuel tank over-pressurization" because a WG-5 forgot to unplug a fuel vent. A “vent plug” had to be tooled out by engineering—usually a red streamer would’ve been affixed, so as to identify that a vent plug was still in place. Due to the rushed nature of its machining, this warning tag was left off. The previous shift had logged in the book that it was ready to fuel and no leaks had been identified. Not knowing a vent plug was still in place( no warning tag), the fuels crew, already short some people, under crew chief Rick Bemrich (sp?) began fueling. With the vent still “plugged” the vapors had no where to go, causing a nearly solid “cube” of JP4 fuel to drop out of the plane’s fuselage. When this mass of fuel, so heavy and volatile hit the tarmac, it caused a static charge which moved to the fuel truck on station. The rest is fairly self-explanatory. The one fatality, his name Jesse, in the cockpit on radio—was a large man weighing nearly 300 lbs. Regulations at the time were such that a man of his frame was too large to fit through all points of egress( I.e. the side windows). A crew mate, Willy was a thin man and managed to jump out of the cockpit, injuring himself from the high drop—survived the incident for this reason. Jesse, trapped in the cockpit of a burning plane with nowhere to go, and against the screams of his crew mates opened the top hatch to attempt to escape. In doing this, he created a vacuum and a new path for the fire. Naturally, he did not survive the veritable blast furnace created by the vacuum draft. My mother, one of two women on the fuels crew at that time was working on the bomber that suffered and started the catastrophe. I got a first-hand account of the incident. She passed away in 2006, never having fully recovered from the PTSD caused by this incident. I’m sure she wasn’t the only one.

1.http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA382723 (declassified USAF document)
2.http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_serials/1958.html
3.http://web.archive.org/web/20171101061754.html
4.http://www.ejection-history.org.uk:80/aircraft_by_type/b52_stratofortress.html

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
07-Nov-2008 10:15	ASN archive	Added
09-Nov-2009 15:21	JINX	Updated
04-Jul-2011 12:56	Anon.	Updated [Total fatalities]
12-Feb-2013 19:21	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Location, Departure airport, Source, Narrative]
10-Jan-2018 19:25	McDadet01	Updated [Narrative]
03-Feb-2019 07:41	wf	Updated [Total fatalities, Other fatalities]
11-Mar-2020 15:59	DG333	Updated [Operator, Location, Departure airport, Source, Narrative, Operator]
25-Dec-2020 17:46	DonMars078	Updated [Narrative]
05-Apr-2022 04:58	Cynpsan29	Updated [[Narrative]]