1964 Bunker Hill AFB B-58 Accident

foreign [Music] ly I took a trip to go meet my new baby granddaughter and on the way something very strange happened our plane had been pushed back and was waiting to get in line to go to the runway when another plane rolled by and the washman's jet engines kicked up a rock and shattered our planes windshield you know I've flown commercial airliners a lot and I faced a lot of reasons for travel delays but that was certainly a new one on me but it did remind me of another instance where the washma jet engine caused an accident it was much more severe implications than a mere travel delay the December 8th 1964 fatal Runway accident of a b-58 bomber at Bunker Hill Air Force Base in Peru Indiana deserves to be remembered the Indianapolis Star wrote on December 13 2018. most people know nothing about Indiana's nuclear bomb incident said Tom Kelly a retired police officer who volunteers at the Grissom Air Museum the term Broken Arrow has become recognized as a U.S military term for an incident involving a nuclear weapon popularized in the 1996 film of the same name actually the U.S military uses numerous terms to refer to various incidents involving our nuclear Arsenal and the term Broken Arrow supposedly used as a code to streamline Communications and speed incident responses neither ubiquitous in the US military nor is they Global nor international code in fact the official terminology used by the United States Department of Defense is accident involving nuclear weapons maybe not as Arcane as Broken Arrow but still frustratingly vague the term encompasses events with varying severity from an accidental or unauthorized launching firing or use by U.S forces or U.S supported Allied Forces of a nuclear-capable weapon system which could create the risk of an outbreak of War to public Hazard actual or implied in fact there has never been an accidental detonation of a U.S nuclear weapon but there have been according to Atomic archive.com 32 accidents involving nuclear weapons in the U.S Arsenal I think it's safe to say that any accident involving a nuclear weapon represents a public Hazard real or implied at least to some degree but it represents a risk also to our service members who face the dangerous job of being the tip of the Spear of the American nuclear deterrent The convair b-58 Hustler was America's first supersonic heavy bomber the aviation magazine hush kit set of the b-58 fast accurate and survivable the convair b-58 Hustler was a sexy Cold War totem it's glamorable lied the grimness of its intended role as a strategic nuclear bomber intended to replace the subsonic Boeing 47 stratojet The Hustler was a radical design described by the website hot cars as one of the maddest bombers ever built b-58 crew member Jack strank was quoted in the Indianapolis Star it just felt different everything even the sound was different the speed the responsiveness it went like an arrow but it was steady like a brick it was like God in heaven another crew member quoted in the star described flying The Hustler as like riding a rocket it's easy to see why the plane has become iconic among Aviation enthusiasts as well as its Crews Colonel George Holt Jr who served as a b-58 navigator Bombardier told hushkit I was quite amazed at my first sight of a b-58 this baby looked fantastic it was much bigger than I'd imagined and you could tell it was built for Speed with those four brute forced j79 engines strung beneath its delta wing with a sharply tapered needle nose it looked ready to break the sound barrier while still on the ground this racehorse was itching to get out of the stable and run with a wind but all that performance meant a particular strain on the crew the Indianapolis Star wrote in 2018 a needle-nosed delta wing job 96 feet long the gleaming silver Hustler was wondrous to look at but it was not easy to fly Hustler Crews were highly skilled and highly respected among Cold War era aviators they were the next thing to astronauts b-58 Hustlers cruised at Mach 2. the crew were quite crowded Holt explained that the b-58 was the only bomber aircraft I know of that had a single pilot with two Navigators on board the DSO was a rated Navigator the crew sat in tandem one behind the other and three isolated cockpits no standing room available perhaps luckily for the cramped Crews flying the Air Force's first supersonic bomber required all your attention Holt continued people often asked did you become claustrophobic sitting in such a confined space for hours on end my reply was always no it was just too darn busy during the mission to have any time to think about being claustrophobic one interesting difference from previous bombers the b-58 cockpit had a seat ejection system Holt noted I had some hesitation as we headed out to the aircraft something didn't feel right I had my helmet an oxygen mask in my nav kit but something was missing my shoulders felt light then I realized I didn't have a parachute after 10 years of flying in tactical and strategic bombers wearing a fairly heavy parachute for hours on end I suddenly realized those days were over no parachute required in the Hustler the escape capsule had its own installed parachute so this would be shirt sleeve flying the b-58 serial number 60-116 was part of the 305th bombardment wing only two bomb wings of the Strategic Air Command were equipped with the b-58 the 43rd bombardment Wing originally stationed at Carswell Air Force base near Fort Worth in the 305th stationed at Bunker Hill Air Force Base in Peru Indiana the 305th had previously operated the B-47 and the first of the Air Force's new Fast b-58s arrived at the base in May 1961. Crews of the 305th demonstrated the capabilities of the new bomber in October 1961 a b-58 of the wing completed operation greased lightning setting a world speed record for a non-stop flight from Tokyo to London that still stands today the Kokomo Indiana Tribune noted in 1963 that for their efforts the crew received words of personal praise from the late President Kennedy and the distinguished flying cross the b-58 broke a lot of Records on May 10 1961 one of the planes stationed at Carswell nicknamed Firefly flew a sustained speed of 1302 miles per hour for 30 minutes that feat earned the blur Road trophy in a war that had been established in France in 1930 that had said that once thought nearly impossible requirement of flying at least 1 243 miles per hour for 30 minutes the crew was sent to France to receive the award at the Paris Air Show while another crew flew Firefly there on the trip Firefly set another record for the fastest Atlantic Crossing to Paris with an average airspeed of 1 105 miles per hour the crowds at the Paris Air Show cheered as the plane landed the Fort Worth Star Telegram wrote on May 27th record-breaking b-58 hit and a Paris Air Show but the plane that was notoriously difficult to operate showed on the other side as well on June 3rd the original crew that had earned the blur Road trophy did a flyby over the air show the Star Telegram reported the next day an estimated 60 000 Spectators in the stands saw the Hustler fly over make two slow rolls and disappear into the overcast the plane which eight days before had streaked across the Atlantic in a record 3 hours 20 minutes crashed Northeast of Paris dead where major Elmer e Murphy aged 36 pilate major Eugene s Moses age 40 Navigator and first lieutenant David F Dickerson age 27 defensive system operator the Paris crash of a firefly was the Star Telegram noted the eighth b-58 to be lost since the plane went into production it was perhaps the necessary price of being on The Cutting Edge General Dynamics executive Frank W Davis told the Star Telegram that the crashes regrettable as they were have not been excessively numerous considering the pioneering nature of b-58 plights the crews of the 305th also experienced the risks of operating in the b-58 the Lafayette Indiana Journal and Courier wrote on August 27 1963 fire that broke out in a b-58 jet bomber during a landing that has been described as routine burned three officers at Bunker Hill Air Force Base Monday night a witness outside the base said the plane bounced as it landed and skidded down the runway on the west side of the base Catching Fire he said flame shot 75 to 100 feet in the air by the 30th The Courier in general reported that 23 year old weapon system officer Captain William Bergdahl had died from his injuries in the Navigator major William Berry was in critical condition with Burns over 90 percent of his body Barry died the following day the terrible accident left an impression on Air Force Captain Manuel Rocky Cervantes an article written by cervante's daughter and published on the website of the Grissom Air Museum's head as they left the base hospital after the accident Rocky promised Captain Jack's drank that he would never die that way but notably all these accidents had occurred without nuclear weapons on board nuclear weapons were not typically carried on training missions but the b-58 was built as a nuclear bomber its fuselage too small to carry an internal bomb load the b-58 carried a single main nuclear Armament on a Centerline pod and two tandem subpylons under each Wing route Each of which could carry smaller intermediate yield tactical thermonuclear gravity bombs thus carrying five nuclear devices per plane well tests were conducted to fit the plane for a conventional Armament the b-58 was more expensive to operate than other Air Force bombers and so it was never used to carry conventional bombs that is to say that an accident involving a b-58 that was carrying its intended payload would be much more likely to create a public hazard December 8th 1964 was a very cold and snowy day at Bunker Hill Air Force Base the Grissom Museum explains with the blowing snow limiting visibility on the runway a kc-135 declared an in-flight emergency and asked for permission to land at the base Bunker Hill was a Strategic Air Command installation and home to half of the supersonic Nuclear Strike Fleet The b-58 Hustler command ordinarily discouraged Intruders for security reasons but this pilot said that he was in trouble he wasn't this kind of subterfuse was fairly common during a Sac operational Readiness inspection or Ori the inspection team would come up with some way to sneak onto a base and then wreak havoc for a week while inspectors tested every Squadron under wartime conditions just minutes after landing the sac Inspector General was escorted to the command post where he presented Colonel Carlton with an execution order for a simulated emergency War planned mission before they could retaliate against a Soviet first strike the aircraft would have to escape the base ahead of an attack Planters estimated that the defense's early warning system might give the air Crews 15 minutes notice the clock started ticking the moment Colonel Carlton received his orders the drill was intended to test Readiness now fast could play it's good in the air but these were planes that were on full alert status that is unlike the accident that had killed two officers the previous August these bombers were loaded with nuclear weapons in the case of the b-58 on which Rocky Cervantes was the Navigator along with pilot Captain Leary Johnson and defensive system operator Captain Roger Hall that meant four b-43 nuclear bombs with a yield of 70 kilotons each and one b-53 high-yield nuclear weapon with a yield of nine megatons a massive bomb with a yield seven and a half times that of the largest nuclear weapon in the U.S Arsenal today pantheos explains each time an alert was issued the crews did not know until they were Airborne whether they were on a training Mission or in fact an actual military strike as each plane taxied onto Runway 22 they lined up behind one another for quick takeoff a mere eight seconds apart in a formation called minimum interval takeoff by the Strategic Air Command taking off in a b-58 was an experience in itself Holt reminisced I always remember the takeoff and climb out of my first mission we were sitting on the runway with four engines in full afterburner then at break release I felt pushed back in my seat and we made a rapid roll-off to lift off and then a climb of 425 knots until we reached altitude of course after takeoff we had to throttle back out of the afterburner to prevent this racehorse from running wild the official Department of Defense report explains what happened to aircraft 60 116 that day as one b-58 reached a position directly behind the aircraft on the runway ahead of it the aircraft ahead brought Advanced power as a result of the combination of the Jet Blast from the aircraft ahead the icy Runway surface conditions and the power applied to the aircraft while attempting to turn onto the runway control was lost and the aircraft slid off the left-hand side of the taxiway the left main landing gear passed over a flush-mounted tax away light fixture and 10 feet further along in its travel grazed the left edge of a concrete light base 10 feet further the left main landing gear struck a concrete electrical manhole box and the aircraft caught on fire the Grissom Air Museum website writes Johnson would later testify that he saw a Flash and the airplane lurched to the left then Hall looked at his small window over the left wing and saw Flames the whole thing was on fire and Johnson ordered his crew to abandon the aircraft three overhead hatches blew off simultaneously Johnson climbed out of the cockpit and over the windshield the heat was intense and Flames licked at his clothing as he crawled across the nose of his aircraft and then jumped down into the snow Hall likewise climbed out of the top of the burning fuselage and ran across the right wing before diving into a snow drift Rescuers rolled him in the snow to put out his burning clothes although not seriously burned he dislocated his shoulder in the fall Rocky had nowhere to go Witnesses saw him rise briefly like he was standing up in a seat to look outside when he saw him might have resembled the Gates of Hell The Hustler was loaded with 14 000 gallons of military-grade jet fuel and most of it was burning around the airplane his position was forward to the wing so he had nowhere to run Cervantes was out of options and made a difficult Choice the Indy star writes Rocky opened his canopy stood up and looked around said Jack strank who was on the base that day and learned what happened from eyewitnesses by then the whole thing was engulfed By Flame so he closed the canopy and ejected he's just thinking get out of that flame and this was the only way out there's some air museum rights of the ejection system it was very effective at high speeds and high altitude but completely unsafe for a Runway ejection because the parachute would not have time to open the star explains Cervantes enclosed an escape pod surrounded by fire ejected he was shot in the air 100 feet the parachute had no time to fill the Pod came down hard on the tarmac Cervantes died quickly meanwhile the plane with its nuclear weapons burned pantheos writes meanwhile firefighting an emergency response Crews were trying to put out the Fireball and secure the nuclear weapons on board which were now engulfed in flames this is where the Fail-Safe efforts of the Pentagon saved North Central Indiana from a much greater catastrophe the detonators were routinely kept separate from the nuclear bombs to avoid an unintended nuclear explosion firefighters had difficulty extinguishing the flames and at least one of the bombs during this emergency and had resorted to digging a pit in The Frozen Ground placing the bomb in the hole and covering it with sand to put off the flames Grissom Air Museum writes General Everett hallstrom led the investigation and later reported the high explosives in all five weapons detonated the aircraft and weapons wreckage burned for two hours during recovery operations the next day the secondary of one of the nuclear weapons burst into flames it was extinguished but then it happened again the next day when this secondary was moved it ignited again and was buried in sand despite the accident involving what pantheos describes as nuclear bombs intended for the Soviet Union not North Central Indiana the Press was surprisingly silent a brief three paragraphs on the bottom of page 13 of the New York Times on December 9 said Colonel Paul Carlton base commander emphasized that there was no danger of a nuclear explosion or radioactivity the indie star noted Ironically in 2018 the Air Force and the Press played down the incident an Air Force spokesman acknowledged for the first time that there were nuclear bombs in Indiana but he insisted on the term nuclear device he said there was nothing to worry about five nuclear bombs engulfed in a roaring 12-hour fire was a news story for just two days to this day the Air Force is opaque on the accident as this redacted copy of a document from the national nuclear safety administration provided last fall to the website governmentadic.org shows certainly we can take some comfort in the fact that U.S nuclear safeguards were strong enough that these nuclear weapons didn't detonate even in the face of such extreme circumstances but the Air Force wasn't quite straightforward when they claimed that there was no threat from radiation while the destroyed nuclear bombs were taken to disposal facilities something was left behind more than 20 years after the accident Bunker Hill Air Force Base which in 1968 was renamed Grissom Air Force Base After deceased astronaut Gus Grissom and today is an Air Reserve Base was downsizing and parts of the base had to be remediated cleaned up for public sale and it was then that they found off in the woods behind a fence and some rusting signs the buried wreck of b-58 serial number 60-116 radiation was found both the site of the original accident and at the place where the wreck was buried required further remediation despite her perhaps because of its pioneering nature the b-58 had a brief shelf life it was expensive dangerous to fly some 22 percent of those produced were lost to accident and despite its speed quickly became vulnerable to developments in anti-aircraft missiles the b-58 fleet was retired in January 1970 just 10 years after it had been introduced a total of 116 were produced 29 year old Air Force Captain Manuel Rocky Cervantes left behind his wife Virginia two sons manual age six to Michael age five and a daughter Charmaine who was just six months old when her father died he was one of 17 b-58 crew members who died in the just eight years at b-58s were operated at the Bunker Hill Grissom Air Force Base sometimes that term Cold War belies the fact that there were very real casualties I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history God check out our community on the historyguyguild.mocals.com our webpage at thehistoryguy.com and our merchandise at teespring.com or book a special message from the history guide on Cameo and if you'd like more episodes of Forgotten history all you have to do is subscribe foreign [Applause] [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 294,782

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy

Id: XzCviCgiZ1c

Length: 19min 19sec (1159 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 01 2023