Smoke plume from B-52 bomber crash visible from passenger plane over Long Beach

A person flying over Long Beach photographed a plume of smoke from the crash of a B-52 bomber about 85 miles away Monday morning.

The photo, which inadvertently included the distant crash, was taken by redditor IllegitimateGiraffe while flying over the San Pedro Bay ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles around 11:20 a.m. The smoke plume was from the crash of a B-52 bomber at Edwards Air Force Base, which is believed to have killed all eight crew members.

The plume appears at the top of the photo, which includes much of Long Beach, Los Angeles and the San Gabriel mountains that separate the cities from the high desert, where Edwards is located.

The photographer subsequently posted the photo to Reddit.

Footage shot at the crash site shows "a charred, smoldering patch of the desert floor roughly the size of a football field," according to Reuters.

Little is known about why the aircraft crashed not long after taking off.

"A United States Air Force B-52 Stratofortress crashed shortly after takeoff on the Edwards airfield at 11:20 a.m.," the base posted on X. "Emergency crews immediately responded to the scene and the situation is ongoing. More information will be provided as it becomes available."

The airfield has been closed and all inbound aircraft are being diverted, according to the USAF. All non-commercial visitors passes have been "suspended until further notice to allow the installation to focus entirely on emergency response operations."

The aircraft was on a "routine test mission" at the time of the crash, according to a news release from Edwards.

There were eight people on board and "initial indications are that the crash was not survivable," states the Edwards news release.

Edwards is the USAF's primary flight test center, where air crews test new aircraft and equipment before they're given to active duty forces.

The base provided the setting for much of Tom Wolfe's 1979 book "The Right Stuff," which reported on the lives and quirks of jet and rocket test pilots, which was later made into a movie of the same name.

Today's crash marks the latest in a series of aviation disasters. On Sunday a civilian plane carrying a pilot and 11 skydiving passengers crashed near Butler Memorial Airport in Missouri, killing all aboard, according to NBC News.

The day before, a U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet crashed near Rimrock Lake in Washington. Though the pilot ejected and landed safely, the aircraft ignited a wildfire upon impact, according to KOMO News.

There are currently 58 active B-52 bombers, according to the U.S. Air Force. Production of the bomber — worth $94 million each in today's dollars — ended in 1962, but the aircraft have been modernized multiple times since.

The last time a B-52 crashed was 2016, when the aircraft's pilot aborted the takeoff from a base on Guam and then overran the end of the runway. Everyone on board survived that crash.