Canadian diver finds ‘lost nuke’ off British Columbia coast
- 7 years ago
BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA — A Canadian diver may have found a long-lost U.S. military bomb that went missing in 1950.
Sean Smyrichinsky was diving near Haida Gwaii, an archipelago 80 km off the coast of British Columbia when he saw a strange object that looked like a huge bagel cut in half, with basketball-sized bowls molded into it, the Guardian reported.
It is possible the object was part of a Mark IV bomb that went missing during a mission on Feb. 13, 1950. The bomb was on board a U.S. Air Force B-36 strategic bomber for a training mission that included a simulated nuclear strike on San Francisco.
The bomb was a dummy capsule packed with lead instead of plutonium core and TNT, according to the Vancouver Sun.
The crew was instructed to jettison the bomb over the Pacific Ocean when three of the plane’s engines caught fire after it left Alaska. The bomb was reportedly released near Princess Royal Island in British Columbia.
The Mark IV weighed about five tons. It was also known as the Fat Man bomb, similar to the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan during World War II.
Sean Smyrichinsky was diving near Haida Gwaii, an archipelago 80 km off the coast of British Columbia when he saw a strange object that looked like a huge bagel cut in half, with basketball-sized bowls molded into it, the Guardian reported.
It is possible the object was part of a Mark IV bomb that went missing during a mission on Feb. 13, 1950. The bomb was on board a U.S. Air Force B-36 strategic bomber for a training mission that included a simulated nuclear strike on San Francisco.
The bomb was a dummy capsule packed with lead instead of plutonium core and TNT, according to the Vancouver Sun.
The crew was instructed to jettison the bomb over the Pacific Ocean when three of the plane’s engines caught fire after it left Alaska. The bomb was reportedly released near Princess Royal Island in British Columbia.
The Mark IV weighed about five tons. It was also known as the Fat Man bomb, similar to the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan during World War II.