page_title: 1971 B-52C Lake Michigan crash
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: 1971 B-52C Lake Michigan crash / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant -Lake Michigan-photo-1970
context_page_description: On January 7, 1971, a Boeing B-52C Stratofortress of Strategic Air Command crashed into northern Lake Michigan at the mouth of Little Traverse Bay near Charlevoix, Michigan, while on a low-level training flight. All nine crew members aboard were lost. No remains of the crewmen were recovered. Parts of the aircraft were retrieved from a water depth of 225 feet in May and June 1971. The structural remains included parts of the wings, all eight engines, the tail, crew section, landing gear and wheels, plus numerous smaller parts of the plane. Oceans Systems, a Florida-based salvage company, carried out the recovery mission. It remains the deadliest plane crash involving a B-52 Stratofortress in aviation history.
context_section_description: Beginning in July 1963, United States Air Force bombers were being scored by Air Force technicians at the mobile radar scoring site in Bay Shore, Michigan. The site was made up of mobile trailers filled with electronic equipment used to track, plot and jam the incoming aircraft and its crew. Each mission was a simulated use of electronics on the bomber to jam enemy radar so that the Cold War mission could be accomplished, while at the same time the ground crew of radar and electronic technicians were doing the same. 5 miles (8.0 km) west of the Bay Shore site was the Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant owned by Consumers Power and had gone active in October 1962. The 67 MegaWatt nuclear reactor was encased in concrete under a steel dome that was 5.5 in (140 mm) thick. From July 1963, most low-level training flight bomber crews had been using the large green dome of the nuclear power plant as a sight target since flying directly over the Bay Shore radar site did not give the ground technicians the ability to properly score the planes. The bombers had to be either west or east of the Bay Shore-based site. As early as November 1963 Consumers Power officials were complaining about the overflights stating in one letter that they posed an exceedingly high risk factor in the event of a crash into its facility. The B-52C was traveling at 365 mph (317 kn; 587 km/h) when the main spar in its left wing suffered a major structural failure, causing a complete loss of pilot control. It was 5 mi (8.0 km) due north of Big Rock Point when it went down on a 312-degree trajectory from the Bayshore Bomb Scoring Site. Both the Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant and the Bay Shore Bomb Scoring Site have since been closed.
caption: Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant-1970
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