The US Air Force announced on 3/12 that B-2 Spirit bomber tail number 89-0129, nicknamed "Spirit of Georgia", completed repairs and returned to flight early last month, four years after a landing gear collapse caused severe damage to the aircraft.

Images released by the US Air Force show the B-2 parked at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri on 6/11, with a caption stating it "has returned to operational status".

The B-2 bomber "Spirit of Georgia" at Whiteman base on 6/11. Photo: USAF

The "Spirit of Georgia" experienced the incident on 14/9/2021 at Whiteman base. The aircraft had to perform an emergency landing gear deployment due to a hydraulic system error. During landing, the mechanical lock on the left main landing gear failed, causing it to collapse and the left wing to scrape the runway.

Technical teams used airbags to lift the aircraft, manually lock the landing gear, and then tow the bomber to a hangar. A subsequent assessment revealed that the damage was primarily around the left landing gear bay and the underside of the wing.

The US Air Force described the recovery of the "Spirit of Georgia" as a complex and lengthy process. A significant milestone in the initial stage was transporting the bomber from Whiteman base to the Northrop Grumman factory in California, where structural repairs took place, on 22/9/2022.

Before the flight, the B-2 underwent thorough inspection and temporary repairs, which saved the US government approximately 52 million USD and shortened the repair timeline by nine months compared to the original plan. The structural repair work at the Northrop Grumman factory was divided into four stages, costing a total of 23,7 million USD and concluding on 12/5, according to the US Air Force.

The B-2 bomber nicknamed "Spirit of Georgia" suffered a landing gear collapse at Whiteman base in 2021. Photo: USAF

The B-2 Spirit is a strategic bomber model introduced by the US in 1988 and is also the most expensive aircraft in history. The manufacturing cost of one B-2 at that time was 515 million USD, equivalent to 1,06 billion USD today. Including research and development costs, each Spirit aircraft would be valued at up to 2,1 billion USD. The B-2 fleet is a spearhead in US preemptive strikes, thanks to its stealth capabilities against enemy radar.

The US produced a total of 21 B-2 Spirit stealth bombers. One was completely destroyed in an incident during takeoff in Guam in 2008. Another aircraft sustained damage from a ground fire in 2010 but was repaired and returned to service at a very high cost.

In addition to the "Spirit of Georgia", another B-2, nicknamed "Spirit of Hawaii", also suffered a landing gear collapse due to a hydraulic system error when landing at Whiteman base in 12/2022. It subsequently slid off the runway and caught fire. The US Air Force determined that the repair cost was too high and decided to decommission the aircraft.

This leaves the US Air Force currently operating 19 B-2 aircraft, though typically only 11-12 are combat-ready, with the remainder undergoing maintenance.

Pham Giang (According to Aviationist)