$2 billion Spirit of Hawaii B-2 bomber crashed because of a tiny part failure
August 12, 2025
On 10 December 2022, what began as a routine support flight for one of the US Air Force’s most advanced aircraft ended in a dramatic runway fireball. A B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, the Spirit of Hawaii, was left in ruins at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri.
Now, a newly released report from the USAF Air Accident Investigation Board has confirmed that a tiny but critical failure in a hidden hydraulic connector deep within the landing gear system triggered the catastrophic landing, a fuel-fed blaze and the aircraft’s permanent loss.
No human was hurt in the crash, but the cost was enormous. The aircraft, valued at over $2 billion, was destroyed beyond repair.
The incident grounded the entire B-2 fleet for months, temporarily shuttered Whiteman’s only runway, and exposed design vulnerabilities in one of the most secretive and iconic aircraft in the world.
B-2 bomber ‘Spirit of Hawaii’ crash: how it happened
The mission began very routinely for the two experienced airmen at the controls, identified only as Mishap Pilot 1 (MP1) and Mishap Pilot 2 (MP2) in the 42-page accident investigation board report.
The Spirit of Hawaii launched just after 7:00 am that morning, acting as a backup for a primary B-2 heading to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii.
Flight planning, take-off, and the outbound leg of the journey were uneventful. But after the lead aircraft confirmed its own systems were healthy, MP1 and MP2 were directed to return to Whiteman. It was on final approach with the runway in sight that things took a dramatic turn.
At approximately 14:24, the aircraft broke out of the clouds, and the crew extended the landing gear. Seconds later, cockpit warnings erupted: first a primary hydraulic leak, then the backup system failed too. A key coupling in the right main landing gear had burst, allowing hydraulic fluid to pour out of both systems.
Though the nose and left gears deployed normally, the right main gear did not. The crew followed emergency procedures and successfully executed an alternate gear extension.
On their instruments, all three gears now appeared locked, but they weren’t.
B-2 landing gear collapsed on touchdown
Unknown to the pilots, the emergency procedure had created a dangerous pressure imbalance. The left main landing gear, although down and locked, was now unsupported by hydraulic pressure. Its locking mechanism was vulnerable.
At 14:28, the aircraft touched down gently, with no hard landing and no pilot error. But almost immediately, the left gear collapsed.
“On touchdown, the left main landing gear (LMLG) lock link assembly failed to stay locked in the overcenter position, causing the LMLG to collapse under the aircraft’s weight. The MP2 perceived the right main landing gear was in the air,” the report states.
“MP1 took control of the aircraft from MP2, noticed a heavy drag to the left, used full deflection of the right rudder to keep the aircraft on the runway, and stood up out of [the] seat to give it everything [he] had on the right brake.”
The aircraft’s massive left wing slammed into the runway and scraped along the tarmac for thousands of feet, throwing sparks and ripping open a fuel tank beneath the wing. The concrete surface of Taxiway Bravo eroded the left wingtip to such a degree that the fuel tank within the wing ruptured and caused a fire to ignite on taxiway Bravo.
As the B-2 skidded into the grassy infield, fire erupted. Neither the ejection seats nor the emergency hatch jettison was employed, nor were they a factor in the mishap.
The crew quickly shut down the engines and found they could still safely egress by shimmying through the crew entry ladder. Behind them, the Spirit of Hawaii was burning.
Confusion made the B-2 fire worse
Fire crews were on the scene within moments, but confusion clouded the response.
The incident commander, believing that foam fire suppressant was only to be used as a last resort, initially ordered water-only firefighting tactics, despite fuel clearly feeding the flames. Worse still, one of the base’s primary fire trucks failed to start.
More than three and a half minutes passed before aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) was authorised, the investigation revealed. Though controversial due to its toxic chemical content, the foam was cleared for use on B-2 fires. That delay gave the blaze time to spread.
Explosions soon followed. The aircraft’s left fuel tanks burst violently, tearing through the wing and ensuring the damage was beyond repair. It took firefighters an hour to fully extinguish the blaze.
The destruction was staggering: over $300 million in damage to the aircraft, with an additional $27,500 worth of damage to the runway. The Air Force made the decision not to attempt repairs. Instead, the Spirit of Hawaii was officially retired.
As the investigation unfolded, it became clear this was more than a one-off malfunction. The root cause was the failure of a CryoFit coupling, a small connector in the hydraulic system. When it failed, it didn’t just cause one issue; it crippled the backup as well because of how the systems were routed.
After the crash, the entire B-2 fleet was grounded as a precaution. While the aircraft remained on alert status for nuclear missions if needed, normal operations were paused for six months. Flights resumed only in May 2023, after inspections and modifications were carried out.
Not the first time a B-2 has had landing gear issues
In September 2021, another B-2, the Spirit of Georgia, suffered a similar failure, again involving the left landing gear. That aircraft skidded off the runway and onto grass during an emergency landing, though it was later repaired.
After that incident, the Air Force began upgrading landing gear systems across the fleet, including on the Spirit of Hawaii, which had its parts replaced in June 2022.
In the six months before the December crash, the aircraft completed 32 uneventful landings. The flaw lay hidden until it didn’t.
Across the fleet, the Air Force has now documented 25 failures involving CryoFit couplings. Ten of those directly affected landing gear hydraulic systems.
Only 21 B-2 Spirits were ever built. Sleek, bat-winged, and virtually invisible to radar, they represent the pinnacle of Cold War-era stealth technology. Capable of flying thousands of miles undetected and delivering both nuclear and conventional weapons, they are a key part of the United States’ strategic deterrent.
The second B-2 bomber lost to a crash
The Spirit of Hawaii is the second B-2 lost due to a crash. The first occurred with the “Spirit of Kansas”, which crashed shortly after takeoff from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam in 2008, due to sensor failure.
Colonel Jesse Lamarand, who led the official investigation, concluded that the crash was caused primarily by the coupling failure and the resulting hydraulic fluid loss. But he also cited two key contributing factors: the landing gear’s vulnerable design during emergency extension, and the delay in deploying foam during the firefighting effort.
The incident is a sobering reminder of how, in aviation, even at the cutting edge, the smallest overlooked component can lead to massive consequences.
For MP1 and MP2, the mission began like any other. But by the end of the day, they walked away from a burning wreck, leaving behind a smoking ruin of a machine they had trusted with their lives.
