January 30, 2000

"One of Our H-bombs is Missing!"

"We have four broken arrows!" exclaimed a voice on Alan Pope's telephone Jan. 17, 1966.

The speaker was recognized immediately -- Jack Howard, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Defense. His statement was code for crashed hydrogen bombs.

A B-52 bomber carrying four H-bombs collided with an aerial tanker over the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Spain.

At that time, the cold war with the Soviet Union was in its most dangerous mode. An American B-52, loaded with enough bombs to eradicate the entire Soviet Union, was kept aloft continuously with three re-fuelings a day -- except for a brief landing once a week in Spain to change crews.

Alan now lives in retirement at Punta Gorda with his wife Ethel. Back then he was director of Sandia Corporation's experimental aerodynamics division at Albuquerque, N.Mex., and Livermore, Calif. Sandia's work was for the government's top-secret military projects.

The missing H-bomb was a major tragedy and diplomatic controversy. Spain and other European countries were frightened of a possible catastrophe and critical of what they perceived as U.S carelessness. Alan provides details heretofore unpublished.

* * *

"Secretary Howard told me that one of the bombs is a hundred yards off shore and easily recoverable. Another is a mile inland. The third is about a third a mile south of that. Its gun-powder firing charge exploded on impact. However, it did not set off the big blast inasmuch as the bomb had not been armed. No one had the faintest idea where the fourth bomb is.

"The B-52, approaching below the tanker, over ran the fueling boom. The boomer failed to retract the boom, and the B-52 rammed it. The boom nozzle stuck into the B-52 fuselage. Both planes broke up. The unarmed H-bombs with their parachutes fell free.

"All four crewmen of the tanker perished. Three of the bomber crew ejected safely but the other four were killed in the crash.

"Jack Howard asked me to assemble a team and meet him that afternoon at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque to calculate the most likely trajectory of the missing H-bomb. My area of expertise was wind effects. I called two trajectory engineers and a parachute expert to meet with me and the secretary, as ordered.  

"We were told the wind had been blowing 120 miles per hour towards the sea at the cruising altitude. Since we knew where three of the bombs had landed, we computed a reverse trajectory for the missing bomb. Next we could assume when the bomb's parachute opened. With these data we calculated an ellipse on the water where it might be.

"I closed the work at 7:30 p.m. with directive to resume the next morning at 7:30. When I arrived, I found that the others had worked all night and had the ellipse laid out on a sea chart. I rushed the information to Washington by courier.

"Several days elapsed until a U.S. Navy submarine arrived on site. I was ordered to report to Palomares, Spain. However, I got permission to send one of the team, Randy Maydew, who had both trajectory and parachute experience.

"When Randy got there, he had the good sense to visit the surviving crew members. They said the wind speed at time of collision was 120 knots - not miles per hour. The landlubber speed, therefore, was 160 miles per hour.

"Randy told the fleet commander about the discrepancy; but the latter held steadfastly to the original calculation, saying it had been run through a computer. The submarine searched fruitlessly for several days.

"The Spanish government grew more angry each day. Authorities there feared the missing doom-day bomb might explode - obliterating Spain if not all of Europe. The world press reported the mishap endlessly.

"Randy waited until the operation shut down on Sunday. He persuaded the submarine skipper to go to the spot where our calculated ellipse ought to be.

"There was the bomb, wrapped in its parachute, 1,600 feet down, stuck into the side of an underwater mountain. Subsequent efforts to grapple the chute dislodged the bomb, and it fell down another 1,000 feet.

"The missing H-bomb was finally brought to the surface. It was laid out on a dock so all the Spanish citizens didn't have to worry about a bomb down in their waters. This proved that our control of atomic weapons was safe.

"The nuke was retrieved. Its dented casing may still be in the atom bomb museum at Sandia Base, Albuquerque."

 The Earth Penetrator

"The H-bomb event lead Alan to intensify development of an "earth penetrator' bomb with smaller, more accurate atomic explosive. He first proposed it in 1961 as a way of destroying Soviet missile silos without spreading deadly fallout or inflicting civilian casualties.

"The theory was simple. Drive a bomb 70 feet into the ground without wavering before it explodes.

"We understood that penetration was governed by weight and momentum," says Alan. "We could delay explosion; but upon going underground, conventional bombs veered off course.

"One day, I packed a nine-inch diameter replica of an atom bomb in a nine-foot piece of iron pipe I found in the scrap yard. I packed raw uranium above the simulated bomb in order to increase weight and resulting momentum.

"When my pencil-shaped bomb was dug out of the ground, I found that it had burrowed straight down. Also, red paint had been scoured off the nose and rear fins - but not the largest part of the body.

"I suddenly realized that earth was elastic - pressed aside a half-inch or so by the bomb's entrance shock but contracting in about the time it took the bomb to travel eight feet. Thereafter, the soil gripped the bomb's tail and held the bomb-path straight. I was awed by discovery of  phenomena previously unknown. It was a major contribution to the science of terradynamics.

"It was classic serendipity. I chose the pipe simply because it had the inside diameter to accommodate my replica warhead, and it was long enough to hold the weight needed for 70 feet of penetration.  

"In many experiments thereafter, I learned the length-weight ratio's necessary for various size bombs of optimum penetration and accuracy in various soils. These experiments took me to Alaska permafrost, Greenland ice, Florida sand, Panama swamps and Alabama rock.

"In the beginning, these experiments were called PHD's - Pope's Hole Diggers. An early  penetrator drove sensitive microphones into the earth along Vietnam trails. It detected enemy footsteps and broadcast their location.

"The penetration data made Pershing missiles possible and is used in many so-called smart bombs. I've been told by Defense Department officials that penetrator-principle missiles were instrumental in convincing the Soviet Union it could not win the cold war. If so, I am grateful that my invention has helped win peace as well as war."

* * *

Alan Pope holds a Master Degree in aeronautics from Georgia Institute of Technology and was professor there of the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aeronautics. In that capacity he supervised Georgia Tech's great, new wind tunnel.

A pioneer in the field of wind effects, he wrote the definitive text book "Wind Tunnel Testing" which still earns him handsome royalties after 56 years of publication. He also wrote three other books on aerodynamics.  

After a year with the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics - forerunner of NASA - Alan in 1950 accepted the position of director of flight for Sandia National Laboratories then managed under contract to AT&T for confidential U.S. government research. He retired with honors from Sandia in 1976.

He is a Fellow of the American Association of Aero and Astronautics.

Author: Lindsey Williams

caption - man with missile

[ In this 1968 photo, Alan Pope examines an earth-penetrator atomic bomb which he invented for Sandia National Laboratories to destroy underground missile silos and communication bunkers.]

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