On this day in history, the US Air Force lost a hydrogen bomb off the coast of Georgia. The bomb has never been recovered. As with many of these things, it all started with a training exercise.A B-47 bomber out from Homestead Air Force Base in Florida on a simulated combat mission collided with an F-86 Sabre fighter. The fighter pilot ejected and his place crashed into the sea. The B-47 sustained heavy damage and, in order to make it to an air strip, jettisoned the bomb. Now, the Air Force has always been quick to say that the bomb was not armed. It had the high explosives and the enriched, yummy uranium, but it didn't have the physics package that would allow the bomb to be detonated. Cold comfort to the residents of nearby Tybee Island.
Starting the next day the Air Force spent the next two months trying to find the thing with no success, and they finally had to admit that they couldn't find it. They feel that it is lying somewhere under about 10 feet of mud and silt in Warsaw Sound between Tybee Island and Warsaw Island. Other people have tried on their own to find it as well. Retired Air Force Colonel Derek Duke spent a good deal of time trawling the sound with a Geiger counter. He found a place where the radiation reads about 10 times higher than the surrounding area, but the Air Force says that's just naturally occurring elements.
Most recently, the Air Force has decided to let sleeping dogs lie. Dredging the sound would create the risk of either accidental detonation or spreading enriched uranium all over the place.
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1 comment:
Lost is such a harsh word to describe a nuclear weapon. I think USAF would describe it as being stored in alternate facilitiy with commensurate security access requirements limited to only Sponge Bob Squarepants and Billy Crabbe.
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