The whole story was sort of creepy. Initially, the government claimed that the plutonium "trigger" wasn't inserted in the bombs so there was no danger...but later, classified documents were released which indicated that the plutonium WAS there. This actually made sense as those bombers were in the air 24/7 back in those days, prepared for the potential "Fail Safe" sort of senario. It is a scary thought to know that nuclear bombs were crisscrossing the country and we were protected only by the "safety" measures on the bombs. One mistake (which almost happened!) and BOOM! The show said that the directive at the time was that, if a plane had to jettison a bomb, they were to fly out at least 25 miles over the ocean. Unfortunately, the bomber in this story was so badly damaged, they were in danger of crashing on land, which would have been a disaster, and had to drop the bomb as soon as it cleared the coast. They said the bomb might be in as little as 20 feet of water!!!! Of course, the government hasn't been able to find it in over 50 years, so there's little chance that random terrorists are going to locate it now. Just scary to think that it could have been dropped over Georgia instead of the ocean...or maybe over Radford!!! On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 3:18 PM, John Ford <[email protected]> wrote: > Mizz Kat: > > Radford had two military targets - the Radford Arsenal and Clator Dam. It > still makes me nervous that I lived there during World War II. > Fortunately, > we were above the high water mark if they had blown the dam. > > John in Ohio > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Kat Fulcher" <[email protected]> > To: "vafloyd" <[email protected]> > Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 2:11 PM > Subject: [VAFLOYD] not genealogy--Science Channel program > > > >I watched a fascinating program on the Science Channel about an incident > in > > 1958 where a bomber had to drop a nuclear bomb into the Atlantic after an > > accident during a Cold War "game" that went wrong! The bomb is still > > lost, > > somewhere off of Tybee Island, Georgia. The CREEPY part of the story was > > that the pretend "target" of the war game was RADFORD, VA!!! Two > bombers, > > loaded with real nuclear bombs, flew over Radford and pretended to wipe > > them > > out!!! The flight plan took them down toward Charlotte, so they probably > > flew right down over my house in Hillsville! Sure glad they had their > > accident and bomb drop out over the Atlantic instead of over the > > mountains! > > Really interesting story. They never did explain why Radford was the > > target > > of the exercise... > > > > Maybe they were huntin' for Ole Paul's house???? > > > > MizzKat > > To contact Listowner: > > Rena Worthen [email protected] > > View the Floyd County Virginia Website at: > > http://www.rootsweb.com/~vafloyd/floyd.htm > > ------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > > quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > > > To contact Listowner: > Rena Worthen [email protected] > View the Floyd County Virginia Website at: > http://www.rootsweb.com/~vafloyd/floyd.htm > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >