The good news is that apparently there were no serious injuries among the crew members.

The bad news is that we lost a C-17.

The word I got was the pilot was making a night landing (I heard it was in Afghanistan) and he landed in the dirt off the right side of the runway.  The nose landing gear ripped of and things went downhill from there.  The airplane continued straight to a stop (no yawing or cart wheeling), and there was massive damage to the lower fuselage.

Current indications are that the airplane is a loss.  As for the causes and full story, that information isn't available as the incident investigation is on-going and I don't want to start unfounded rumors.

It's a shame, because the C-17 is such a cool jet and valuable airlift asset.

Damn.  But we're still making C-17's and they can be replaced.  The crew's ok, more important.

Yeah, but it takes $200 million and two years to build one.  

Quoted: Yeah, but it takes $200 million and two years to build one.

who gives a shit, the crew is ok

Quoted: Quoted: Yeah, but it takes $200 million and two years to build one.   who gives a shit, the crew is ok

It's a big resource to write off.

A C-17 can haul up to 170,000 pounds of gear/supplies to troops in the theater.

It's not like losing your canteen and getting Supply to scratch it off the list.  

We are all glad that the crew is OK, but that's a huge loss for what appears to be pilot error.

Yeah, $200m is a lot.  But like I said, the C-17 is still in production.  If we lose an A-10 or a B-1b, no mas.