▶ FULL STORY:
On February 5, 1958, a B-47 bomber damaged in a mid-air collision jettisoned a Mark 15 hydrogen bomb into Wassaw Sound off Tybee Island, Georgia, and it has never been recovered. A custodian receipt signed by the pilot, Major Howard Richardson, lists a 150-pound lead dummy cap instead of a live core, yet in 1966 Assistant Secretary of Defense W.J. Howard told Congress the bomb was a complete weapon. We weigh the two records, follow the failed 1958 search, the 2001 Department of Energy survey, Derek Duke’s 2004 radiation readings and the monazite sand verdict, and explain why the official position is to leave the bomb undisturbed.
Context: The incident was designated a Broken Arrow. The Air Force declared the bomb irretrievably lost on April 16, 1958. Four months after the accident, the Atomic Energy Commission prohibited nuclear bombs in training exercises. The Air Force acknowledges the bomb still holds 400 pounds of conventional explosives and enriched uranium. In 2006 the Navy estimated a very low possibility of locating it, and no active search is under way.
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If the Tybee bomb really lies under five to fifteen feet of silt in Wassaw Sound, what would it actually take to check whether the 150-pound lead cap on Richardson's custodian receipt is the thing inside it?
(The full case file is on the channel — tap the related video, or the link in the description.)