G.R.

Off Spain a B-52 and it's tanker collided. Tanker crew perished. 5 of
B-52 crew ejected ok.

B-52 had four bombs aboard. Three stayed in bomber when it crashed. HE
on two bombs went off and scattered Nuc material and we (US) took 1500
tons of dirt back here to dispose of.

4th bomb fell clear of A/C and into the water. It took 80 days to
locate and recover.

No record of any Alabama incident I can find.

One near Goldsboro, NC off). B-52 broke up in flight (wing fell off)
and dropped two bombs. One safety chute failed and bomb impacted
ground with 5 of the 6 safety switches activated (24 Mega ton
Weapon).

B-52 crashed landing at Tule Air Base, Greenland. Fire and Nuc
material scattered on Ice. Big clean up.

Other accidents through the years.

Airborne alert was discontinued in 1968 and since then Military A/C
weapon accidents have diminished.

Big John


On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 14:39:10 GMT, "G.R. Patterson III"
wrote:



Jay Honeck wrote:

I know we kept recon early warning flights airborne for much of the Cold
War, but I didn't know we kept bombers in the air.

We kept armed B-52s up at all times through at least 1980. There's an H-bomb
at the bottom of the ocean off the coast of Spain and another one in the Gulf
near Alabama. I don't remember why they were jettisoned. Prior to the buffs,
we kept B-36s up and had F-100s carrying nukes out of Turkish bases.

George Patterson
A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that
you look forward to the trip.