1965 Philippine Sea A-4 incident

The 1965 Philippine Sea A-4 crash was a Broken Arrow incident in which a United States Navy Douglas A-4E Skyhawk attack aircraft carrying a nuclear weapon fell into the sea off Japan from the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga.[3][4] The aircraft, pilot and weapon were never recovered.[5]

1965 Philippine Sea A-4 incident
A MK43 free-fall nuclear weapon on a handling dolly
Incident
DateDecember 5, 1965
SummaryPre-flight human error
SitePhilippine Sea
27°33.2′N 131°19.3′E
Aircraft typeDouglas A-4E Skyhawk
Operator Attack Squadron VA-56[1]
Carrier Air Wing Five
RegistrationBuNo 151022[1]
Fatalities1 Pilot (LTJG Douglas M. Webster)[2]

The accident

On 5 December 1965, 31 days after Ticonderoga's departure from U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay in the Philippines,[3] the attack jet was pushed backwards over the side, off the #2 elevator during a training exercise while being rolled from the number 2 hangar bay to the number 2 elevator.[2] The pilot, Lieutenant (junior grade) Douglas M. Webster; the aircraft, Douglas A-4E BuNo 151022 of VA-56; and the B43 nuclear bomb were never recovered[6] from the 16,000 ft (4,900 m) depth. The accident was said to occur 68 miles (59 nmi; 109 km) from Kikai Island, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan.[7]

Ticonderoga had aboard Carrier Air Wing Five during this cruise, with two squadrons of Skyhawks. The lost aircraft was part of Attack Squadron 56 (VA-56); VA-144 was the other.[8]

Number of weapons

Though most sources state that a single weapon was involved, a document from Los Alamos National Lab indicates that two weapons were involved.[9]

Revelation

It was not until 1989 that the United States Department of Defense revealed the proximity of the lost one-megaton H-bomb to Japanese territory.[10] The revelation inspired a diplomatic inquiry from Japan requesting details.[11]

See also

References
  1. Oskins, James C; Maggelet, Michael H. (2007). Broken Arrow: The Declassified History of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Accidents. Raleigh, North Carolina: Lulu Publishing. p. 217. ISBN 978-1-4357-0361-2.
  2. "LTJG Douglas M. Webster". A4skyhawk.org. 1965-12-05. Archived from the original on 2010-12-06. Retrieved 2022-07-22.
  3. "Ticonderoga Cruise Reports". Archived from the original (Navy.mil weblist of Aug 2003 compilation from cruise reports) on 2004-09-07. Retrieved 2012-04-20. The National Archives hold[s] deck logs for aircraft carriers for the Vietnam Conflict.
  4. "The Bizarre Mystery of the Only Armed Nuke America Ever Lost". www.vice.com. Archived from the original on 2022-09-15. Retrieved 2022-09-15.
  5. Richard Halloran (May 26, 1981). "U.S. discloses accidents involving nuclear weapons". The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 30, 2019. Retrieved February 15, 2023.
  6. "Broken Arrows: Nuclear Weapons Accidents". Almanac. atomicarchive.com. Archived from the original on April 23, 2022. Retrieved July 22, 2022.
  7. Maruyama Kuniaki 丸山邦明 (2005). "Gunji kichi mondai to Amami" 軍事基地問題と奄美. In Kagoshima-ken chihō jichi kenkyūsho 鹿児島県地方自治研究所 (ed.). Amami sengo-shi 奄美戦後史 (in Japanese). p. 254.
  8. "CV-14". Archived from the original on 2021-02-23. Retrieved 2012-06-14.
  9. Peterson, Paul David; Clarke, Steven Anderson (2022-10-11). An Introduction to Los Alamos National Laboratory (Report). Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States). p. 24. Archived from the original on 2022-10-25. Retrieved 2022-10-25.
  10. "U.S. Confirms '65 Loss of H-Bomb Near Japanese Islands". Politics. The Washington Post. Washington, D.C. May 9, 1989. Archived from the original on March 28, 2021. Retrieved July 22, 2022.
  11. "Japan Asks Details On Lost H-Bomb". The Washington Post. Washington, D.C. 10 May 1989. p. A-35.
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