[Atlas Sneezed]

It’s a miracle more of it doesn’t result in casualties (unless it does, and I just haven’t heard about it).

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As a rule, if being dropped from a plane won’t make it explode, 50 years sitting around won’t make it more likely. But there are exceptions, and I wouldn’t bet my life.

[Fantasywriter]

“I wouldn’t bet my life.”

That makes two of us! Hats off to the people who are retrieving this bomb—may their mission end safely and successfully.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

A couple of the 22 mines the British dug under the German trenches at Messines and packed with almost 500 tons of explosives didn't go off on schedule in 1916. Lightning set off one of them in 1955. Fortunately the only casualty was a cow.

The other one is still down there someplace.

[PapaBear3625]

As a rule, if being dropped from a plane won’t make it explode, 50 years sitting around won’t make it more likely. But there are exceptions, and I wouldn’t bet my life.

What makes TNT such a useful military explosive is that you can drop it, let it get hot, and bang it around, and it WON'T explode unless its detonator goes off.

BUT, let it age, especially if stored in a warm environment, and it becomes more sensitive to shock. Dynamite is even more touchy as it ages -- it exudes nitroglycerin.

[Nebr FAL owner]

The French have a org. called the Bureau of Deminage the stuff that really scares them are the poison gas shells from WWI since many of them still contain more than residue of active chemical weapons like mustard gas which is really an oily liquid.

Also the french lose about 8-12 folks a year to accidents with old ordnance, old WWI artillery shells have a habit of sometimes going boom when smacked by a disc type plow pulled by a farmer.