The XB-70 Valkyrie mid-air collision and the photo shoot that killed two pilots at Mach three's doorstep

On June 8, 1966, a routine publicity photo shoot over the Mojave Desert turned into one of the worst mid-air collisions in test flight history. An F-104 Starfighter struck the North American XB-70 Valkyrie, shearing off both vertical stabilizers and killing two pilots: Joe Walker, who had flown the X-15 to the edge of space, and Major Carl Cross, on only his second flight in the Valkyrie. The collision happened because General Electric wanted a marketing photograph of five GE-powered aircraft in formation.

What Was the XB-70 Valkyrie?

The XB-70 Valkyrie was a strategic nuclear bomber designed to fly at Mach 3 — three times the speed of sound — at 70,000 feet. Powered by six General Electric YJ-93 turbojets producing 30,000 pounds of thrust each, the aircraft weighed half a million pounds fully loaded and could outrun every Soviet interceptor in existence.

By 1966, the program was already dying. Intercontinental ballistic missiles had made high-altitude supersonic nuclear delivery obsolete. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara had cut the fleet to just two prototype airframes relegated to research duties. The three-billion-dollar bomber had no future as a weapon.

Why Was a Formation Photo Flight Happening?

General Electric still had a commercial interest in the Valkyrie’s engines. They organized a formation flight of five GE-powered aircraft for marketing photography: the Valkyrie, a B-58 Hustler, an F-4 Phantom, an F-5 Freedom Fighter, and an F-104 Starfighter. A Learjet flew ahead as the photo chase plane.

Ship Number Two — the second Valkyrie prototype — served as the centerpiece. At the controls sat Al White, North American’s chief test pilot. In the right seat was Major Carl Cross, an Air Force test pilot with minimal Valkyrie experience.

The formation assembled over Edwards Air Force Base on a clear morning. For several minutes, everything went perfectly. The resulting photographs are stunning — five sleek jets tucked beside the enormous white delta, the Mojave stretching below them.

What Caused the Collision?

As the formation began to break up, something went catastrophically wrong with Joe Walker’s F-104 Starfighter, which was tucked dangerously close to the Valkyrie’s right wing.

Joe Walker was no amateur. He had flown the X-15 rocket plane and held the altitude record for winged aircraft at 354,200 feet — literally the edge of space. The exact cause has been debated for six decades: wake turbulence, a momentary lapse, or the vortex off the Valkyrie’s massive delta wing.

Walker’s Starfighter rolled inverted and slid over the top of the Valkyrie, striking both vertical stabilizers and shearing them off. The F-104 exploded instantly. Walker was killed on impact.

How Did the Valkyrie Crash Unfold?

The XB-70 was so large and aerodynamically stable that she continued flying straight for several seconds after losing both vertical tails. White and Cross may not have immediately known what happened — there was no rearview mirror, no camera showing the damage behind them.

Then the yaw began. Without vertical stabilizers, nothing kept the aircraft pointed straight. The Valkyrie entered a flat spin — a slow, inexorable rotation in a 500,000-pound aircraft that pinned the crew into their seats with centrifugal force. Flight controls were useless.

The Valkyrie used escape capsules, not ejection seats. A clamshell door was designed to close around each pilot before the pod blasted free. Al White triggered his capsule and survived, though his arm was badly injured when caught by the closing clamshell.

Carl Cross never escaped. Whether G-forces pinned him, the capsule malfunctioned, or he was incapacitated remains unknown. Ship Number Two hit the desert floor north of Barstow with Cross still aboard. He was 36 years old.

What Did the Investigation Find?

The investigation identified wake turbulence and formation proximity as primary factors. Unresolved questions lingered: why was the formation so tight, why did a civilian publicity flight have so little margin for error, and why was Walker positioned where he was. The answers were bureaucratic and unsatisfying.

The risk calculus remains staggering. A pilot who survived rocket-powered flight at 4,000 miles per hour died in a subsonic formation photo pass for an engine company’s marketing department.

What Was the Valkyrie’s Legacy?

Ship Number One survived and flew until 1969, gathering research data on supersonic flight that fed directly into the Concorde program and modern high-speed aerodynamics. The Valkyrie program produced invaluable data on compression lift, high-speed inlet design, and the thermal challenges of sustained Mach 3 flight.

Ship Number One now sits in the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson in Dayton, Ohio — 240,000 pounds of aluminum honeycomb and stainless steel, nose drooped forward, wingtips folded down. Built in 1964 with slide rules, it still looks more advanced than most aircraft flying today.

Key Takeaways

• Two pilots died on June 8, 1966 — Joe Walker (54) and Carl Cross (36) — in a mid-air collision caused by a GE publicity photo shoot
• The F-104 Starfighter struck both vertical stabilizers of the XB-70, likely due to wake turbulence from the Valkyrie’s massive delta wing
• The Valkyrie was already obsolete — ICBMs had eliminated the need for a Mach 3 bomber, making the fatal photo mission even more pointless
• Al White survived using the escape capsule system; Carl Cross did not escape and died in the crash
• The surviving Valkyrie (Ship One) contributed critical supersonic research that influenced Concorde and modern high-speed aerodynamics