A US military B-52 Stratofortress bomber crashed shortly after takeoff from Edwards air force base in southern California’s Mojave Desert. All eight crew members aboard were presumed to have been killed, air base officials say in a statement released on Monday. The eight-engine, jet-powered Boeing aircraft – built to carry nuclear and conventional bombs – was on a routine test mission when it went down. Aerial video footage of the crash scene, about 100 miles (161km) north of Los Angeles, showed a charred, smouldering patch of the desert floor roughly the size of a football field as an emergency vehicle was seen driving along the site’s perimeter
