{"id":214096,"date":"2026-06-17T07:52:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T07:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/one-of-the-8-people-killed-in-b-52-crash-at-california-base-had-just-welcomed-baby-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T07:52:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T07:52:20","slug":"one-of-the-8-people-killed-in-b-52-crash-at-california-base-had-just-welcomed-baby-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/one-of-the-8-people-killed-in-b-52-crash-at-california-base-had-just-welcomed-baby-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"One of the 8 people killed in B-52 crash at California base had just welcomed baby – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

news Alerts
There are no new alerts at this time
One of the eight people who died in the crash of an Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bomber<\/a> in California on Monday had recently welcomed a son, his wife said.
Subscribe to read this story ad-free
Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.
\u201cMy husband just went back to work. He was there for just a week,\u201d Lauren Smith said about her husband, Jeromy Smith.
The Defense Department and Edwards Air Force Base have not released the names of those killed in Monday\u2019s crash, which happened shortly after the plane took off around 11:20 a.m.
Members of the military, military civilians and government contractors were on board, officials have said. Boeing confirmed that two of its employees were killed.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation. The aircraft was on a routine test mission supporting a \u201cradar modernization program,\u201d Air Force Col. James Hayes told reporters Monday.
An initial gathering of facts can take up to 30 days, and then an accident investigation board will review the crash, Hayes said. It can take six months before the information is gathered and released to families and the public, he said.
Jeromy Smith was a civilian flight test engineer for the Defense Department and worked on projects at Edwards Air Force Base for 10 years, Lauren Smith said.
The Smiths have two children: Fletcher, 2 years old, and Fallon, who was born four months ago.
\u201cWe did not see this coming,\u201d she said.
Jeromy Smith had received the Aerial Achievement Medal for flying medium- to high-risk sorties, and he was proud of that, Lauren Smith said.
But for the six years Lauren Smith has been with her husband, she said, she never felt like things were not safe.
Monday\u2019s flight had originally been scheduled for Friday but had been pushed back, she said.
\u201cThey go through tons of safety things before they even take off. And I know specifically on Friday they had \u2014 they were gonna fly on Friday, and they just kept pushing it back and pushing it back,\u201d she said.
\u201cAnd I don\u2019t think that plane was ready to take off, and I\u2019m so sad it did,\u201d she said.
The Defense Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Lauren Smith said the last text she sent her husband was \u201cI love you.\u201d
She became aware of the crash through social media and learned that her husband had died when people from work showed up at her door at 6 p.m. Monday, she said.
\u201cHe worked really hard for this country, and he loved this country so much,\u201d she said. \u201cI know he is just a speck in this world of people, but he truly, truly loved this country, and he would do anything for this country.\u201d
\u201cAnd he left a legacy with his kids,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I hope that they \u2014 they know that their father was a hero and that he loved them very much.\u201d
Liz Kreutz is an NBC News correspondent.
Phil Helsel is a reporter for NBC News.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeOne of the eight people who died in the crash of an Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bomber in California on Monday had recently welcomed a son, his wife said.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.\u201cMy husband just went back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":214097,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-214096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}