Fighter Jet Down in Calif. Desert

Visitors will pass through underground tunnel in 'Terminal'

(NEWSER) - Swiss artist Christoph Buchel has applied for a permit for a truly big, truly strange art exhibit: He wants to bury a 727 in the Mojave Desert, allowing guests to visit it through an underground tunnel. The piece will be called "Terminal," and the group Buchel organized for it, Terminal Project LLC, has already shelled out $21,000 for 5.3 acres of undeveloped desert, according to real estate records found by the Bakersfield Californian . More»

Driver unhurt, chased from scene by mob

(AP) - An off-road truck plowed into a crowd and scattered "bodies everywhere" moments after sailing off a jump at a California race yesterday, killing eight people and leaving 12 injured, authorities and witnesses said. " There were just bodies everywhere," he said. "One woman with a major head wound (was) lying in a pool of blood. Someone else was crushed beneath the car," a photographer covering the event for off-road magazines, told the AP. More»

(NEWSER) - The Army plans to evict more than 1,000 endangered desert tortoises to expand a tank training ground in the Mojave Desert, the Los Angeles Times reports. Conservationists warn that the last effort to shift the tortoises proved disastrous: Many were wiped out by predators, and others traveled up to 8 miles to return to their old territory. More»

Stormy Florida weather prompted NASA to go to Plan B

(NEWSER) - With weather conditions in Florida remaining too soggy for a safe shuttle landing, Atlantis instead touched down at Edwards Air Force Base in California this morning. This was the 53rd west-coast landing for a space shuttle, a $2 million decision made easy by the balmy conditions in the Mojave Desert. Atlantis will make it back to Kennedy Space Center on the back of a modified 747. More»

Crewman injured after jet crashes during training mission

(NEWSER) - A military pilot was killed when his jet crashed in the Mojave Desert north of California's Edwards Air Force Base yesterday, the AP reports. Military officials said the T-38 Talon was on a training flight. The navigator ejected and is in stable condition in hospital. The crash, still under investigation, is the second deadly one involving a plane from Edwards AFB in the last two months. More»