[Dekan]

Its my understanding that the Bomber carrying this weapon was involved in an accident with the fighter and there was an actual decision made to dump the bomb before attempting a landing. It would certainly suck to have your Bomber (i.e. flying gas-tank) explode on the runway and scatter uranium around everywhere.

If this is the incident Im thinking about, whoever made those decisions gets 2 thumbs up from me.

[show me state]

Its my understanding that the Bomber carrying this weapon was involved in an accident

You are correct.

That loss came Feb. 5, 1958, when a B-47 bomber on a training mission collided in mid-air with a smaller jet and was struggling to land at what then was Hunter Air Base, at that time a Strategic Air Command facility. It is now known as Hunter Army Airfield.

According to news accounts from the time and official Air Force reports, the pilot of the B-47 decided he could not safely land the plane with the bomb on board and headed back out to sea to dump it. Without sophisticated radar or global positioning systems available today, the exact location of the plane when it dropped the bomb is unknown.

[pepsionice]

In those days...SAC bomber pilots had checklists and air-control towers had them as well...and everyone went by the checklist (unlike today's fighter-pilot managers). It was a simple item on a checklist somewhere, and someone had sat down and thought about what to do. Under no circumstances would you land a damaged plane with nukes onboard. Its a absolute mixture for disaster.

As for what to do with the possible bomb...nothing. If you try to remove...you are tempting fate and will likely cause an accident.