Colonel Howard Richardson ditched the bomb off Tybee IslandPosted on 06/23/2009 1:32:58 PM PDT by BGHater
More than 50 years after a 7,600lb (3,500kg) nuclear bomb was dropped in US waters following a mid-air military collision, the question of whether the missing weapon still poses a threat remains.
In his own mind, retired 87-year-old Colonel Howard Richardson is a hero responsible for one of the most extraordinary displays of aeronautic skill in the history of the US Air Force.
His view carries a lot of weight and he has a large number of supporters - including the Air Force itself which honoured his feat with a Distinguished Flying Cross.
But to others, he is little short of a villain: the man who 50 years ago dropped a nuclear bomb in US waters, a bomb nobody has been able to find and make safe.
'Top-secret flight'
Shortly after midnight on 5 February 1958, Howard Richardson was on a top-secret training flight for the US Strategic Air Command.
It was the height of the Cold War and the young Major Richardson's mission was to practise long-distance flights in his B-47 bomber in case he was ordered to fly from Homestead Air Force Base in Florida to any one of the targets the US had identified in Russia.
The training was to be as realistic as possible, so on board was a single massive H-bomb - the nuclear weapon he might one day be instructed to drop to start World War III.
As he cruised at 38,000 feet over North Carolina and Georgia, his plane was hit by another military aircraft, gouging a huge hole in the wing and knocking an engine almost off its mountings, leaving it hanging at a perilous angle.
Colonel Howard Richardson ditched the bomb off Tybee Island
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
No doubt it drifted to an island in the South Pacific where it was nicknamed “Jughead.”
I am no expert on nuclear ordinance, but it seems to me that such a weapon MUST be emitting radiation. And certainly we have improved our radioactivity detection devices since that age. So shouldn’t such devices be brought to the area and a search begun anew?
Dunno.
Lot’s of Hurricanes, ebb and flow, have occured since then. It could be covered with so much sand that it would be impossible to find.
Ha!
Plutonium is an alpha emitter.
They know where it is. The problem is the radioactive part is surrounded with lots of high explosives. They could recover the radioactive part but if they trigger the explosives they kill people and spread the radioactive parts over a fairly big area. No danger from it actually triggering a nuclear explosion though.
I just love the bias ...
‘drop to start World War III.’
‘drop to Finish World War III.’
If it was only a training mission and didn’t have its nuclear trigger, what is the point of carrying it besides the weight. For that they could have carried a 7600 lb steel or lead weight....
Devices of this era didn’t have insensitive HE, and a number of incidents occured where in crashes the explosives cooked off killing fire crews.
Just leave the thing where it is.
There was a TV special about the recent hunt for the bomb.
It’s a private organization looking for the bomb. Kind of like Moster Quest only it’s a bomb quest.
Colonel Richardson is adamant that it is incapable of a nuclear explosion because it lacks the vital plutonium trigger.
So technically it wasn't even a nuclear weapon when it was lost. It won't be emitting any radiation either.
I’m one of those LOSTies....didn’t they detonate this bomb on the last episode this season in order to try and change the space / time continuim?
The anti-American hate is just instinctive with the MSM, whether here or in UK.
You’d have to be real close to be able to detect any radiation emitted...Probably within 20-25 feet. The water surrounding the bomb would attenuate all the radiation beyond that point. And if the bomb has silted over to any significant amount, forget it—something that heavy probably buried itself at least halfway in the seabed anyway.
It is safe and sound in a warehouse just outside Moscow.
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