Tybee bomb
The Tybee Bomb is a 3.5 ton heavy mark-15 - the hydrogen bomb , which is near the island on February 5, 1958 Tybee Iceland before Savannah , Georgia was lost. After a Boeing B-47 bomber of the US Air Force's Strategic Air Command collided with an F-86 during a training flight in the air , the commander had to drop the bomb in order to land the aircraft safely. It is one of eleven missing US nuclear weapons .
The accident
Two B-47 bombers flew a training mission from Homestead Air Force Base 
, Florida on the morning of February 5, 1958 . At 2 a.m., one of the B-47 bombers collided with an F-86 fighter. The pilot of the F-86 was able to save himself from the crashing plane with the ejector seat. The B-47, however, was still airworthy, but the right engine was damaged. After three unsuccessful attempts to land, the decision was made to drop the bomb, as it was feared that the conventional explosives in the bomb would detonate in a crash. The bomb was then dropped over Wassaw Sound southwest of Tybee Island from an altitude of around 2,200 meters and at a speed of 200 knots . The B-47 eventually landed at Hunter Air Force Base in Savannah.
The bomb
The approximately 4 m long Mark 15 bomb weighs 3.5 tons and bears the serial number “No. 47782 ". It contains 180 kg of conventional explosives and highly enriched uranium . The explosive force is 1.69–3.7 megatons depending on the version .
Potential danger
In 2001 the US Air Force published a study intended to describe the danger to residents in the vicinity of the suspected dropping point. According to the study, the bomb poses no imminent threat because the nuclear detonator has been removed. However, the commander of the B-47 bomber states that the detonator was inserted when the aircraft took off. The US Air Force decided it was more sensible to leave the bomb on the bottom of the sea rather than trying to lift it and risking explosion or contamination of the area.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Study by the US Air Force on the Tybee bomb ( memento from June 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 42 kB)
Map with all coordinates: