The Nation - News from June 14, 1987

All Strategic Air Command aerial demonstration programs have been canceled after an investigation into the March 13 crash of a jet tanker at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane in which seven airmen died. The Air Force, in a report on the accident, concluded that the crash of the KC-135 tanker was caused by the tanker’s dropping to a low altitude and a slower air speed than planned, inadvertently taking it into the tremendous jet wake of a B-52 with which it was practicing aerial stunts. The KC-135 was about 150 feet above the ground when it hit the jet wash and plowed into an open field.