MINOT AIR FORCE BASE - Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James said a Minot Air Force Base B-52 bomber crew did a "magnificent job" when one of the plane's engines dropped from the plane Wednesday while on a local training mission.

"Based on what I have heard so far, the crew just did a magnificent job under difficult circumstances but of course one of the hallmarks of our airmen is we place a lot of emphasis on training and so even under difficult circumstances, training kicks in," said James, in an interview Wednesday while visiting the Minot base. "From the sounds of it, they did all of the right things to ensure continuing safety of flight for the period that they remained aloft."

James was informed by Minot AFB officials about the engine incident while at the base Wednesday.

"They do believe at this point that it was really a catastrophic failure of that one engine. Another way of putting that is it disintegrated and then fell out of the aircraft upon disintegration," James said.

"They think it's at the bottom of a river, so recovery of that is something we would like to do because that helps in understanding what happened but that, of course, complicates it if it's at the bottom of the river - it may take a longer period of time," she said.

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Minot AFB officials said when the B-52 pilot discovered an engine dropped from the aircraft on Wednesday, an in-flight emergency was declared. The aircraft landed safely with no injuries to the five crew members on board and when the plane landed, it was confirmed the engine was gone. No weapons were on board.

An initial safety investigation board has been set up by the wing commander. UH-1N helicopters assigned to the 54th Helicopter Squadron at the base, located possible engine debris in an unpopulated area about 25 miles northeast of the the base, Minot AFB officials said.

James said she estimates it will be several months before the accident investigation has been completed. "But the key thing is the crew did a great job - no one was hurt. They landed safely," she said.

She said she has "zero indication" the engine incident is a widespread problem within the B-52 fleet.

"I have no indication of that - there's no evidence of that. It appears this was a one off situation but again I want to emphasize it just happened and it will be fully investigated," James said.

She added that the Air Force puts a great deal of emphasis on maintenance - preventive maintenance.

James said many people "hearken back to the fact" that the B-52 is an old aircraft. "But they're very, very well maintained and they have very high what we call mission capable rates. They fly a lot, we keep them well maintained in order that they can fly a lot."