nuclear-news

A nuclear bomb is still missing after it was dropped off the Georgia coastline 65 years ago

Since 1950, the US military has been involved in 32 “broken arrow” incidents, where they lost or dropped nuclear weapons or other issues, like fires, were involved.

In his book “Command and Control,” Eric Schlosser wrote that in 1957 Air Force planes unintentionally dropped a nuclear weapon once every 320 flights. Coupled with the high rate of B-52 bomber crashes, there was the potential for about 19 incidents involving nuclear weapons each year.

Jenny McGrath Sep 16, 2023, Business Insider

• In 1958, two Air Force jets collided over Georgia, and one was carrying a nuclear weapon.
• The plane dropped the bomb off the coast of Tybee Island and landed safely.
• Several searches have failed to find the weapon in the decades since.

Every once in a while, a high reading of radioactivity off the coast of Tybee Island, Georgia, sends the US government scrambling to look for a nuclear weapon that’s likely hidden 13 to 55 feet below the ocean and sand, buried in the seafloor.

On February 5, 1958, two Air Force jets collided in mid-air during a training mission. The B-47 strategic bomber carried a Mark 15 thermonuclear bomb.

For over two months, the Air Force and Navy divers searched a 24-square-mile area in the Wassaw Sound, a bay of the Atlantic Ocean near Savannah. They never found the nuclear bomb.

Forty years later, a retired Air Force officer who remembered newspaper stories about the lost bomb from his childhood started a search for it.

“It’s this legacy of the Cold War,” said Stephen Schwartz, author of “Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of US Nuclear Weapons Since 1940.” “This is kind of hanging out there as a reminder of how untidy things were and how dangerous things were.”

But some experts say that even if someone finds the bomb, it may be better to leave it buried.

An armed training mission

At the time of the collision, it was “common practice” for the Air Force pilots on training missions to carry bombs on board, according to a 2001 report about the Tybee accident.

The purpose of the training mission was to simulate a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. They practiced flying over different US cities and towns to see whether the electronic beam would reach its target…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

In 2004, Richardson told CBS News he regretted dropping the bomb because of all the trouble it caused.

“What I should be remembered for is landing that plane safely,” he said. “I guess this bomb is what I’m going to be remembered for.”

The question of the plutonium capsule………………………………………………………………

The US government and military have repeatedly said the Tybee weapon didn’t contain a plutonium capsule when Richardson jettisoned it. A receipt for the bomb that Richardson signed at the time said he wouldn’t allow the insertion of an “active capsule” into the weapon.

A 1966 letter declassified in 1994 complicated the picture. It referred to then-Assistant Defense Secretary Jack Howard’s testimony before a congressional committee calling the Tybee bomb a complete nuclear weapon, with plutonium included. In 2001, a military spokesman told The Atlantic that they had recently spoken with Howard, and “he agreed that his memo was in error.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

One mishap among many

Less than a month after Richardson jettisoned the Tybee bomb, another B-47 accidentally dropped a nuclear weapon on South Carolina. It didn’t contain plutonium but left a 50-foot crater in a family’s yard. A few family members had minor injuries but everyone survived.

Since 1950, the US military has been involved in 32 “broken arrow” incidents, where they lost or dropped nuclear weapons or other issues, like fires, were involved.

In his book “Command and Control,” Eric Schlosser wrote that in 1957 Air Force planes unintentionally dropped a nuclear weapon once every 320 flights. Coupled with the high rate of B-52 bomber crashes, there was the potential for about 19 incidents involving nuclear weapons each year.

Between 1960 and 1968, the US military kept jets armed with nuclear weapons at the ready in case of a surprise nuclear attack. A series of near misses and serious accidents with nuclear weapons caused the Air Force to end the program.

“I don’t think we’re going to go back to the bad old days of putting our nuclear weapons on aircraft,” Schwartz said…………………………. https://www.businessinsider.com/missing-nuclear-bomb-georgia-coast-still-not-found-2023-9
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September 18, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA