“Someone May Have Some ‘Splainin’ to Do . . . . “
. . . about a practice bomb that apparently was dropped a bit off-target.
How far off-target? Try in the parking lot of a Sudlersville, MD, tavern – the parking lot of “Darlene’s Tavern”, to be precise – at just after 9PM this past Thursday evening, while people were sitting at nearby outside tables.
The MD National Guard has confirmed that one of their aircraft dropped the training device.
The incident is under investigation, and mayi in fact have been due to a mechanical malfunction. But if not, I’m thinking someone just might find themselves in a bit of a bind.
Category: Air Force, Reserve Issues
Even if it is a mechanical malfunction, heads may still roll. Too easy for someone to have gotten hurt or worse.
Maybe they ought to rename the place “Downrange”?
Sounds like a hung bomb that decided to come off as the pilot was flying back to base. The bomb is a BDU-33 and it is usually pushed off the ejector rack by a device resembling a small shotgun shell minus the pellets. Sometimes they get a bad lot number and things like this occur. He should have had a wingman and that wingman should have done an assessment about flying over populated areas though.
A practice bomb? A PRACTICE BOMB??????
Will they allow Darlene to keep the aforementioned wayward ordnance as a souvenir? It only seems right.
oops!
Sounds like a mechanical failure. Maybe one of the Aviation Ordnance types can chip in on what happened.
We had a pilot drop “blue death” on one of the Batteries in our Battalion in 29 Palms in 91. If it had been live ordnance they would have been screwed as it landed right next to the Ammo trucks.
The pilot got keel-hauled because he had never been cleared hot to drop by the FAC. He was coming in on target but thought the Battery was the target.
“But according to military leaders, before it crash landed in the parking lot, it was on a jet on its way back from a training exercise out of Air National Guard base in Middle River.”
Never knew bombs could “crash Land” fugging civvie reporters.
What what if the ‘practice bomb’ smacked down right in the middle of your pizza and beer? What then?
Will that National Guard division buy you a new pizza?
Will they pay the cleaning bill for your nice clothes that you wore on this very important date with a really cute guy?
Seriously, if those helicopters that occasionally fly over my house from Great Lakes ever drop anything and it goes through my roof or the roof of my car, I’m keeping it, and they’ll have to pay for the repairs. I mean it.
@8 I’d ask for a refill and demand a purple heart, I would catch them PTSD and pin the budweiser, oh wait … no … but I would have a talk with the pilot on how sinful is to waste beer and pizza, I mean .. beer, on the floor, that’ll give anyone nightmares, it was cold too!! 😛
I would definitely not give it back “What do you mean I have t give this back? hell no finders keepers son!!” and just try to figure out what cool stuff you can do with it (maybe a table? a couch?)
Wow.
Just wow.
Guess I am glad I am up here in the Great NW.
Ooopsie!
Probably just a coincidence that the pilot was thrown out of the place last week because of rowdiness.
“Sounds like a mechanical failure. Maybe one of the Aviation Ordnance types can chip in on what happened.”
Ask, and ye shall receive. 🙂
Hung bombs on the -33 are actually very common occurrences, most times due to a misfired impulse cartridge. If it didn’t fire perfectly, it might not create enough oomph to open up the hook that the suspension lug hangs on. If they get a hung bomb, the pilot will try to shake it loose while still above the range. If not, then they try and get back as gently as possible. The beast weighs about 25 lbs and is roughly the same size as a bowling pin, and when it lets go it’s doing to hurt whatever it hits. In addition, the spotting charge can and will hurt you if you’re within about 15 feet directly behind the -33 when it hits.
I do find it hard to believe that the pilot left the range apparently unaware that the -33 was still on the rack. The pilot or range observers are supposed to confirm each hit and tell the pilot if they didn’t get a release. Even though this was a night mission, somebody should have had eyes on that weapon.
Mike
Correction: Misread the article – the pilot did know he had a hung bomb and was trying to get it back without hurting anybody.
Mike
Hmmm. Not good. We had a F-18 pilot “accidentally jettison” a fuel tank off his aircraft outside KBay Hawaii during RIMPAC one year. Didn’t turn out too good for him, either.
@9 – Lost, they might get it back if I got a date out of it. 😉
Eh honestly its nothing new….quite a few times while doing calfx at ntx either an art round would fall super short or on the rare when they actually did eeal air support a missile would go flying off into the distance with no idea where it landed …..granted because of those it would be an immediate cease fire then wait for cid to show up….play the horse and pony show for shit we had no control over as grunts…..we keep buying from the lowest bidder and wonder why shit goes wrong
I meant ntc….damn phone keyboard
Remember when a B-52 accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in Georgia?
I think it was near Savannah, and as I recall, the undetonated nuclear bomb was never recovered.
Many, many years ago, when I was working for the Department of Defense Police at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, one of my rotated patrol duties was sitting on a small dirt embankment and observing a five hundred pound bomb that had been dropped many years before, but hadn’t detonated.
It was located adjacent to a highly sensitive storage area for chemical weapons, and the bomb could not be touched, handled, or moved.
All we could do (whenever it was our turn) was sit there for our entire shift just watching that huge undetonated bomb.
________________________________
Ex PH-2:
In the Army, we had all sorts of practice ordnance, used to simulate combat conditions during training.
You should see what it’s like being at the TARGET end of the tank gunnery range!
(Somebody has to operate those moving targets that the tanks are firing at.)
And, of course, every G.I. who completed Basic Combat Training remembers crawling face down through the Infiltration Course late at night, with explosives being detonated all around them, and machine guns firing over their head.
JRM: not sure I’d call the Tybee Island incident an “accidental drop.” While a training accident was the root cause (midair collision between an F86 and a B47 that caused loss of the former and severe damage to the latter), the weapon itself was dropped intentionally.
After the midair, the B47 was in bad shape but flyable. A nonnuclear explosion was feared if the aircraft landed with the bomb on-board and the pilot was given permission to jettison it. After receiving the OK, the pilot jettisoned the bomb into Wassaw Sound near Tybee Island. He managed to land the aircraft safely at nearby Hunter AFB (now Hunter Army Airfield).
The jettisoned bomb was never recovered, and is believed to still be buried in 2 to 5 meters of mud at the bottom of Wassaw Sound. There are conflicting reports as to whether or not the weapon had a functional nuclear capsule at the time of loss.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid-air_collision
Hondo:
Thanks for the clarification.
Time scrambles the memory.
JRM: agreed; time does indeed play havoc. I had to look that one up to be sure I was remembering things correctly – and I follow nuclear matters quite closely.
The Tybee Island incident is one of only a handful of nuclear weapons that are known to have been lost intact and not later recovered or confirmed destroyed. And even for that one, the term “intact” may or may not be apropos.
Maybe bombing Maryland was Biden’s idea for punishing Syria without actually doing anything. It sounds like something he’d come up with, doesn’t it?
I live in Maryland and many times, bombing the place seems like it would be a damn fine idea!
Could be worse. They still have never found the nuke dropped and lost off the coast of savannah,Ga years ago.
Here’s a 2008 story from NPR about the Tybee Island nuke bomb drop. It has links to other related information.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18587608
Everyone is calling this an accident, but did anyone check to see if the pilot’s ex-wife was in the bar at the time?
people get bombed in bars all the time, accidentaly or on purpose.
@ 10, Thumb, I live on an oil burner route. Otherwise known as a Low level Penetration Route. I have had F/A-18’s fly past my house below the level of my deck. They fly up the very narrow valley, past and below my house and up and over the next ridge. The funny thing is that my dogs hear them coming and sound the alarm. That prepares me for the sonic boom they sometimes make as they go into burner to pop over the rapidly approaching ridge. Awesome.
Republic is in Ferry county and I live just inside Okanogan county. Two miles east of Wauconda pass.
DAMMIT !!!
I told you not to touch that button !!!
This oughtta be good !!!
@29 RIR I live on the side of Old Dominion East of Colville and our boys are always playing games overhead! Love It!
I loaded thousands of these in the 70’s when I was at MCAS Yuma.
It may actually be a Mk.76 Practice Bomb. They came packed 2 to a box and 144 on a skid.Newbies spent many hours of fun in the sun breaking these things out,pulling the cotter pin and
firing pin outta the nose.
BDU 33s were loaded into the tail and used an arming wire.
That smoke cartridge put out a darn nice flash at nite and the smoke could close a freeway that ran through the mountains between Yuma and San Diego, at laest that’s what I hear.
Never saw a plane come back with one after the cad fired,though,and I hung’em in all 3 Marine Aircraft Wings.
Guess that’s one way to settle a bar tab…
Maybe the pilot can do a flyover of Wilson lane in Bethesda. Then he would have a legitimate reason to hate service members.