Tybee Island Broken Arrow Site, Georgia

Somewhere in the sediment under the waters near Tybee Island, is a 12 foot-long thermonuclear bomb, lost in an accident in 1958. The bomb was intentionally jettisoned by the pilot of a B-47 bomber sometime after midnight, following a mid-air crash with an F-86 fighter jet. The damaged B-47 landed safely after the crash. This was one of several Broken Arrow incidents in the USA (the technical name for an accident involving a nuclear weapon where the weapon is lost or destroyed but does not explode critically). Crews from the Air Force and the Navy were deployed the next morning to look for the bomb, but gave up after two months. There have been other official attempts to locate it, most recently in 2004, but without success. The Air Force says that the nuclear capsule, the plutonium pit, was not in the bomb when it was lost, but some records differ. Either way, the 7,600 lb Mark 15 bomb contains hundreds of pounds of high explosives and enriched uranium. If it emerges from the sediment and becomes exposed to seawater, it will corrode, which will release radioactivity, which will no doubt aid in its discovery.