US Air Force refuelling jet disappears off radar over English Channel

• Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker left Amiens in northern France at 0.05am 
• Last reported on flight tracking website south of Dover 15 minutes later
• It’s unclear why QID72 plane declared an emergency early this morning

 
Mark Duell
The Daily Mail [UK]
28 April 2015

A US Air Force refuelling aircraft disappeared off the radar over the English Channel last night.
The Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker left Amiens in northern France at 0.05am local time (11.05pm BST) and was last reported on a flight tracking website between Dover and Calais 15 minutes later.

It is not yet known why the plane – flying under the code QID72 and based at Mildenhall in Suffolk – fell off the radar at 0.20am. The US Air Force was unavailable for comment.

Around 36 of the aircraft have been involved in crashes in the past, according to the Daily Express.
In 2013 three US airmen were killed when their military refueling tanker military tanker crashed in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan.

Accident investigators found that a malfunction in the aircrafts control system caused the fatal crash.

Photographs and maps are at The Daily Mail.