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B-1B landed at RAF Fairford yesterday with only three engines installed:

Photos here:

http://tinyurl.com/337ln8


John

The engine bay looks too orderly to have been an engine loss in flight, looks like a three engined ferry flight to me.

Agreed, otherwise you'd have all the fire/rescue vehicles awaiting its arrival and swarming over it after it landed.

I contacted the USAF Public Relations guys and received this reply yesterday:

The B-1 you are referring to damaged an engine while flying out of a
forward operating base in the US Central Command area of responsibility.
Incase you are wondering, the damage was not a result of enemy fire.

We'll be releasing more information about that aircraft and its journey
to Fairford over the next few weeks. I invite you to keep an eye on
www.af.mil for more information.

Again, I am sorry for the delayed response.

Maj. Thomas Crosson
Air Combat Command Public Affairs

From AF.mil:

Broken B-1B flown from Afghanistan for repairs

Staff report
Posted : Saturday Oct 27, 2007 6:36:31 EDT

How many airmen does it take to get a broken B-1B Lancer bomber out of Afghanistan?

Hundreds, from veteran pilots who flew the crippled bomber to maintainers who pulled out the damaged engine.

On Aug. 26 a B-1B bomber made an emergency landing at Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan after the jet’s No. 4 engine caught fire.

While investigators set about to discover what went wrong, teams from Air Force Materiel Command were summoned to figure how to get the $238 million bomber out of Afghanistan and to a friendlier location where the aircraft could be repaired.

Among the Materiel Command units summoned were:

* 419th Flight Test Squadron, Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., where aircrews had background on flying a B-1B with three engines and other difficult circumstances.

* 10th Flight Test Squadron at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., which conducts functional check flights on B-1Bs following depot level maintenance. The squadron also has operational risk management experts.

* 555th Aircraft Sustainment Squadron, Tinker, where engineers provided technical analysis needed for damage assessment and repair.

* 654th Combat Logistics Support Squadron, Tinker, whose members have expertise in aircraft battle damage repair.

* Directorate of Air, Space and Information Operations, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, which looked at past cases involving B-1B flights with three engines and evaluated the risks.

“We discussed potential hazards and mitigating conditions with Tinker engineers and aircrews from the 10th and 419th before approving the recommendation for a one-time flight movement for this B-1,” Dr. Dave Jerome, deputy director of the command’s Air, Space and Information Operations, said in an Air Force statement.

The plan to fly the B-1B on three engines out of Kandahar finally got a green light. The jet took off on Oct. 2 for a one-stop flight that eventually landed the bomber at RAF Fairford in England, where Air Force teams are working to make the plane fully airworthy.

Great update on this post. Glad you remembered and made the update.

Ron

Rescuing a Damaged Bone: Air Force Materiel Command personnel from various units united to figure out how to get a B-1B bomber damaged by a fire in its No. 4 engine during a mission over Afghanistan to a safe environment for repairs. John Scaggs reports that ultimately eight enlisted mechanics from the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center, which provides repair and depot work on B-1s, deployed to Southwest Asia. On-site maintenance crews had removed the engine, leaving the OK-ALC crew to ready the bomber for flight with only three engines, "a dicey proposition." Air Force Reservists from the 10th Flight Test Squadron at Tinker AFB, Okla., used a simulator at Dyess AFB, Tex., to prepare themselves for the flight and joined with Air Combat Command aircrew members, since the departure point was in a war zone, and flew the bomber in two legs to a standby airfield, RAF Fairford, England, where engineers and mechanics are considering whether they can fully repair the bomber at Fairford

From Air Force Daily report-29 Oct 07