Accident Report for B-2 mishap from Dec 2022

Basically the crew didn't follow the check list... got it.

If any landing gear extension malfunctions are present, then aircrew should follow the Landing
Gear Fails to Extend/Emergency Extension checklist. The checklist directs aircrew to take the
following actions:
1. Landing gear handle – DOWN.
2. Landing gear emergency lowering switch – DOWN.
If all landing gear extend:
3. Do not retract gear.
If all landing gear fail to extend after 90 seconds:
4. Landing gear emergency lowering switch – RESET.
5. Landing gear handle – UP.
6. Prepare for gear up landing.

Nice job by the maintenance lead in discovering the indication issues on the LMLG.

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A single B-2 bomber is estimated to cost a little over 2 billion dollars.

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Yes, because Congress killed the program at just procuring 21 of them. The original plan was to buy over 100. When you have to divide the total cost of development and procurement by just 21 versus 100, the cost of each then just multiplied by ~5x.

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Congress killed the program at just procuring 21 of them.

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Old NASA slogan = "We can build it Fast, Cheap, or Good = pick any 2"

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Old NASA slogan = "We can build it Fast, Cheap, or Good = pick any 2"

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And the AF takes that a step further and says choose 2 to aim for and you will maybe end up with one of those two.

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Why can’t they extend the time to try these solutions over and over again?

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With the component failure they had, there was no way hydraulic fluid would have ever gotten to the Right Main Landing Gear to unlock and begin to lower no matter how many times they would have tried to raise and lower the gear handle. That's what led to the emergency extension which uses a completely different path. And according to what the pilots could see in the cockpit, once they used the emergency extension, they had indications that all three gear were down and locked, so no need to try anything else.

Should have called it the 2B

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I wonder if they never ran into this issue in all past years

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Yes, they had...10 other times prior to this one. The one in Sep 2021 also led to a left main gear collapse. The other 9 all landed safely. What was different in those 9 cases versus the most recent 2, was the time between the attempt to lower the gear normally before commanding the emergency extension. That's as far as I can say.

The emergency extension never applies hydraulic pressure to the lock link. It only applies pressure to a component (can't remember its name) that pushes the gear down and opens the door. Gravity then takes over and pulls the gear to the down position. Since left gear and nose gear and their associated doors were in the correct position, the emergency extension should have had nothing to do with it. The emergency extension was only to fix the RMLG. But we found there to be a flaw in the system that made that emergency extension have an unintended consequence that changes the position of the lock link on the gear that had hydraulic pressure applied to it; in this case the left main landing gear (the AIB noted that too). Since the RMLG lock link never had hydraulic pressure applied to it, the flaw was not involved.