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US searching for lost H-bomb
September 30, 2004 10:52 IST
Americans build so many bombs that it is entirely possible they would lose one now and then.
Right now, the US government is trying to find a nuclear bomb, lost off the Georgia coast in 1958, reports CNN.
A B-47 bomber had dumped the approximately 4,000kg hydrogen bomb into the Atlantic Ocean after it collided with a fighter jet during a training flight. After nearly 10 weeks, the government had called off the search to retrieve the bomb.
It contains uranium and approximately 200kg of conventional explosives. The USAF claims there was and is no danger of a blast because the bomb does not have a trigger. The US military lists it as one of 11 'Broken Arrows' - a reference to nuclear bombs lost during mishaps.
The latest search was initiated after Derek Duke, a retired US air force officer who has been searching for the bomb over the past five years, reported unusual radiation readings in Wassaw Sound near Tybee Island, Georgia.
The government has put together a team of 20 scientists to determine if the lost bomb is causing the unusual radiation readings.