During a practice exercise on February 5, 1958, an F-86 fighter plane collided with an Air Force B-47 bomber over the waters off Tybee Island near Savannah, Georgia. To reduce weight and to protect the aircrew from a possible detonation in an emergency landing, a 7,600-pound Mark 15 nuclear bomb similar to the one pictured above was jettisoned. The crew landed the B-47 safely at Hunter Air Force Base.

The bomb contained four-hundred pounds of high explosives and highly enriched uranium. Some sources describe the bomb as a functional nuclear weapon, but others call it disabled. If the bomb had a plutonium nuclear core installed, it was a fully functional weapon; if it had a dummy core installed, it was incapable of producing a nuclear explosion but could still produce a conventional explosion. If a nuclear detonation had occurred, the possible blast effects included a fireball with a radius of 1.2 miles and thermal radiation capable of causing third-degree burns for ten times that distance.

The military conducted several searches, but were unsuccessful in locating the bomb. On April 16, they announced the bomb was presumed lost somewhere in Wassaw Sound off the shores of Tybee Island. The Department of Energy stated a hydraulic survey showed the bomb is likely buried under five to fifteen feet of silt at the bottom of Wassaw Sound, but no undue levels of unnatural radioactive contamination have ever been detected in the region.

The Bomb Is Not Found

In February 2015, an article posted on a satirical website jokingly stated the nuclear bomb had been removed from the bay after being found by Canadian tourists.  The supposed finding became major “fake news” after the story was spread through social media.

The Bomb Is Not Found 

SOURCES:

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution
• Nuclear Information Project
• Savannah Morning News
• Wayback Machine