Togetherness "Yet"

[Dave Monroe]

"There has never been a tragedy on any Bomarc airlift.
Yet." (Togetherness)


"Yet"

No. 20, June 7, 1960/BOMARC/McGuire Air Force Base,
[near Trenton,] New Jersey

A BOMARC air defense missile in ready storage
condition (permitting launch in two minutes) was
destroyed by explosion and fire after a high pressure
helium tank exploded and ruptured the missile's fuel
tanks. The warhead was also destroyed by the fire
although the high explosive did not detonate. Nuclear
safety devices acted as designed. Contamination was
restricted to an area immediately beneath the weapon
and an adjacent elongated area approximately 100 feet
long, caused by drain-off of the firefighting water. 
CDI: The BOMARC missile was one of the 56 housed at
the 46th Air Defense Missile Squadron in Jackson
Township, N.J., ten miles east of McGuire Air Force
Base. Each missile was housed in a separate concrete
and steel shelter. The BOMARC had earned a reputation
as a dangerous weapon system. The New York Times
reported the 47-foot missile "melted under an intense
blaze fed by its 100-pound detonator TNT...THe atomic
warhead apparently dropped into the molten mass that
was left of the missile, which burned for forty-five
minutes." The radiation "had been caused when
thoriated magnesium metal which forms part of the
weapon, caught fire,... the metal, already
radioactive, becomes highly radioactive when it is
burned." [interesting but faulty analysis - MILNET] 

http://www.milnet.com/cdiart.htm

And see as well ...

http://www.cpeo.org/lists/military/2004/msg00545.html

But apparently still no airlift accidents.  Yet ...


		
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail