View Full Version : When bomb loading operations go wrong...
B-52 during Vietnam. M117 (750 pound) bomb. Hard to tell but the nose fuze may have sheared off also.
I think somebody may need to recertify :D
https://i.imgur.com/0DLJA9Z.jpg
And probably change their shorts while they're at it...
Averageman
12-22-21, 09:16
That's nuts.
FromMyColdDeadHand
12-22-21, 09:22
Is it that the Fuze is broken and may have triggered? Obviously, you don’t want to opppsie one of these, but isn’t it hard to make one go off? Like it has to arm after so many rotations? Looks like it was a dark and stormy(wet) night..
The M904 nose fuze has a small arming vane that needs to spin a certain number of revolutions in order to arm the fuze (IIRC, 30 turns of the vane equals one second of arm time). Obviously damaging the fuze creates an unsafe situation, but these have been broken off before with no explosive result.
looks like a fun morning for EOD, and a certain someone having a not fun day explaining himself to the first shirt
B B stacking gone wrong. More training needed, I suppose.
Doesn't look like the fuse was mounted yet, I see recessed threads.
You don't add fuses until after things are secured on the rack. Still would be a oh shit moment.
When my grandfather was stationed in Italy a returning B-24 had a hung bomb which came loose on landing, went right through the bay doors and skidded down the runway with the bomber. The bomber came to a stop but the loose bomb continued right into one of the base buildings.
Thankfully the fuse propeller didn't spin enough to arm the bomb.
Standard USAF practice (when I was in Munitions) was to prefuze all munitions in the bomb dump. Not sure what SAC's policy at that time was. I believe the Marines/Navy do all fuzing on the flightline?. In the bomb in question I think what we're possibly seeing is the empty M148 adapter booster, so there would be no fuze installed.
(In the munitions community it's "fuze" and not "fuse" :D )
Ready.Fire.Aim
12-22-21, 19:25
Over the side it went ?
Standard USAF practice (when I was in Munitions) was to prefuze all munitions in the bomb dump. Not sure what SAC's policy at that time was. I believe the Marines/Navy do all fuzing on the flightline?. In the bomb in question I think what we're possibly seeing is the empty M148 adapter booster, so there would be no fuze installed.
(In the munitions community it's "fuze" and not "fuse" :D )
One on the plane clearly has a fuze installed (learned a new word) so why would the one on the loader (probably the wrong word) not get a fuze?
One on the plane clearly has a fuze installed (learned a new word) so why would the one on the loader (probably the wrong word) not get a fuze?
Unknown. Again, with the quality of the picture it's possible that the fuze was sheared off. Or maybe EOD had been there, removed the fuze, and then left. The scene then lent itself to an interesting picture. Whatever the actual case, it's probably lost to history.
BTW, the vehicle is an MJ-1 bomblift truck.
Unknown. Again, with the quality of the picture it's possible that the fuze was sheared off. Or maybe EOD had been there, removed the fuze, and then left. The scene then lent itself to an interesting picture. Whatever the actual case, it's probably lost to history.
BTW, the vehicle is an MJ-1 bomblift truck.
That seems most likely the thing to do before you take pictures. Maybe not today, but back then. Probably had to document accident in order to pull it from inventory if damaged, etc.
I really don't know anything about any of this stuff beyond my grandfather pointing out the "fuze" during an air show tour of B-24s and 17s (obviously on a dummy bomb) and him explaining how the propeller spun and energized the bombs.
After that I always paid attention to photos (mostly from WWII era) of bombs being loaded on fighters or in bomb bays and noting if the fuzes had been installed yet or not. Seemed to me that most of the time fuzes got installed after they were in bomb racks. Probably not to prevent detonation so much as damage to the fuze if something got fumbled. I can't imagine what a chore it might be to remove a fuze from a bomb that had just dropped 8 feet nose first.
But loading ordnance is high on my list of jobs I'd never want to do in the first place.
Here's some old footage of the same type of bomb being pre-loaded into bomb bay clip-in assemblies. Instead of loading the bombs into the aircraft one at a time, the entire preloaded assembly is loaded as a unit. And the bombs are pre-fuzed at the time of buildup. All this was an effort to speed up the whole process, and tactical aircraft such as F-4's, F-105's, also used the "pre-load" concept. It was a method born out of necessity during Vietnam, but fell out of usage with the USAF after the war ended.
You may notice small anemometer-looking devices on the tails of some of the bombs. This is called an ATU-35 drive assembly, and it arms the tail fuze through a flexible shaft and coupler arrangement.
When I joined the USAF in 1978, most if not all of my NCO's were Vietnam vets. They had pretty much seen it all and done it all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaEBYpUf90w
My grandfather had a story from WW2. He was an Army Air Corps MP and was stationed as flightline security on the makeshift airfields in India and Burma. They ran bombers out of there to support the campaigns in Asia against the Japanese.
Being short on manpower he sometimes got tasked with helping on the planes. One day he was told to help load the bombs into one of the bombers and was running the forklift type vehicle that loaded the bombs. He messed up and ended up dropping a bomb into the plane and damaging the bomber. He said it was a tense few seconds as they stared wide eyed at the bomb he dropped. They didn't ask him to help again after that. Hahaha.
Diamondback
12-23-21, 11:48
You want real pucker, before radio Permissive Action Links they used to require on nukes that the bombardier go back into the bay and plug the fuzes in IN FLIGHT.
P2Vaircrewman
12-25-21, 15:10
We had a plane come in late one night from a training mission. It had practice rockets still on the hard points. Procedure was to stop at the de-arming area and the ord guys would de-arm everything. Ord guys never arrived so the pilot taxied to the ramp, shut it down and went home. The next morning maintenance goes out to service the aircraft. Somehow one of the rockets launched. It went through the hanger office space and ended up in the officer’s locker room. Luckily no one was injured.
We had a plane come in late one night from a training mission. It had practice rockets still on the hard points. Procedure was to stop at the de-arming area and the ord guys would de-arm everything. Ord guys never arrived so the pilot taxied to the ramp, shut it down and went home. The next morning maintenance goes out to service the aircraft. Somehow one of the rockets launched. It went through the hanger office space and ended up in the officer’s locker room. Luckily no one was injured.
Given that nobody died or got hurt, that's actually funny as hell. Can you imagine being the poor bastard that accidentally launched it. Wonder if he knew they were practice rockets.
P2Vaircrewman
12-26-21, 21:49
Given that nobody died or got hurt, that's actually funny as hell. Can you imagine being the poor bastard that accidentally launched it. Wonder if he knew they were practice rockets.
I don’t think the pilot thought it was funny after an ass chewing from the CO.
I don’t think the pilot thought it was funny after an ass chewing from the CO.
It was probably the maintenance OIC that got the ass chewing. The aircrew probably laughed and said “that sucks,” then went and flew the spare.
I don’t think the pilot thought it was funny after an ass chewing from the CO.
Yeah, but there is that moment when you realize what you just did, when your brain mentally screams "Nooooooooooooooo" and your body moves in a futile gesture to grab back what only a moment ago left your complete control....few things come close to that level of absolute horror except for the level of black comedy that results from realizing the worst possible outcome didn't occur and not only didn't a building full of people die in a violent explosion that you caused...nobody even got hurt.
And honestly when you've gone through that mental exercise, no amount of ass chewing, punitive duty or even dismissal from position even comes close. There have been a couple times in my life where I thought an unintentional error on my part was leading to complete disaster that might get people hurt or killed, thankfully I either got lucky or misjudged the severity of the situation, but I cheerfully accepted reprimands and consequences because I honestly thought for a moment it was going to be a LOT worse and there is not much that anyone can do to you that you didn't already put yourself through. It's also funny how starting the conversation with "If you're gonna let me go I understand and it's fine" changes the tone of a potential ass chewing, but it had better be genuine and you better mean it because you probably might still get fired.
When it comes to rockets doing unintended damage, there was the unfortunate "Battle Of Palmdale":
"The incident resulted in damage on the ground. The Mk. 4 rockets were fitted with point-detonating warheads that armed on firing. Of the 208 rockets, only 15 were discovered undetonated.
The first set of rockets started brush fires 7 miles (11 km) northeast from Castaic which burned 150 acres (61 ha) above the old Ridge Route near Bouquet Canyon.
Some of the second set of rockets reached the ground near the city of Newhall. In Placerita Canyon, one rocket was seen bouncing along the ground and starting a series of fires near a park, while others set fire to oil sumps owned by the Indian Oil Co. The fires reached within 300 feet (91 m) of the Bermite Powder explosives plant. Other rockets started fires in the proximity of Soledad Canyon, near Mount Gleason, burning more than 350 acres (140 ha) of rough brush.
The final set of rockets were fired while the Scorpions faced Palmdale; many landed within the town. "As the drone passed over Palmdale's downtown, Mighty Mouse rockets fell like hail." "Edna Carlson, who lived in the home on Third Street East, said that a chunk of shrapnel from one Air Force rocket burst through the front window of her home, ricocheted off the ceiling, went through a wall and came to rest in a kitchen cupboard."More rocket fragments completely penetrated a home and garage on 4th Street East. One rocket landed right in front of a vehicle being driven west on California State Route 138 near Tenth Street West, of which one tire was shredded and many holes were punched through the car's body. Two men in Placerita Canyon had been eating in their utility truck; right after they left it to sit under the shade of a tree, a rocket struck the truck, destroying it. Many fires were started near Santa Clarita, with three large ones and many smaller ones in and around Palmdale.
It took 500 firefighters two days to bring the brushfires under control. 1,000 acres (400 ha) were burned. There were no fatalities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Palmdale
I don’t think the pilot thought it was funny after an ass chewing from the CO.
Probably bad enough to get one's wings pulled...
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