1958 Tybee Island mid - air collision The Tybee Island B - 47 crash was an incident on February 5 , 1958 , in which the United States Air Force lost a Mark 15 nuclear bomb in the waters off Tybee Island near Savannah , Georgia , United States . During a practice exercise , the B - 47 bomber carrying the bomb collided in midair with an F - 86 fighter plane . To protect the aircrew from a possible detonation in the event of a crash , the bomb was jettisoned . Following several unsuccessful searches , the bomb was presumed lost somewhere in Wassaw Sound off the shores of Tybee Island . Midair collision . The B - 47 bomber was on a simulated combat mission from Homestead Air Force Base in Florida . It was carrying a single bomb . At about 2 : 00 AM , the B - 47 collided with an F - 86 . The F - 86 crashed after the pilot ejected from the plane , but the B - 47 , although damaged , remained airborne , albeit barely . The crew requested permission to jettison the bomb in order to reduce weight and prevent the bomb from exploding during an emergency landing . Permission was granted , and the bomb was jettisoned at while the bomber was traveling at about . The crew did not see an explosion when the bomb struck the sea , and managed to land the B - 47 safely at the nearest base , Hunter Air Force Base . The pilot , Colonel Howard Richardson , was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross after this incident . Bomb . Some sources describe the bomb as a functional nuclear weapon , but others describe it as disabled . If the bomb had a plutonium nuclear core installed , it was a fully functional weapon . If the bomb had a dummy core installed , it was incapable of producing a nuclear explosion but could still produce a conventional explosion . The 12 - foot ( 4 m ) long Mark 15 bomb weighs and bears the serial number 47782 . It contains of conventional high explosive s and highly enriched uranium . The Air Force maintains that the bomb ' s nuclear capsule , used to initiate the nuclear reaction , was removed before its flight aboard B - 47 . As noted in the Atomic Energy Commission " Form AL - 569 Temporary Custodian Receipt ( for maneuvers ) " , signed by the aircraft commander , the bomb contained a simulated 150 - pound cap made of lead . But according to 1966 Congressional testimony by then Assistant Secretary of Defense W . J . Howard , the Tybee Island bomb was a " complete weapon , a bomb with a nuclear capsule , " and one of two weapons lost by that time that contained a plutonium trigger . Nevertheless , a study of the Strategic Air Command documents indicates that in February 1958 , Alert Force test flights ( with the older Mark 15 payloads ) were not authorized to fly with nuclear capsules on board . Such approval was pending deployment of safer " sealed - pit nuclear capsule " weapons that did not begin deployment until June 1958 . Recovery efforts . Starting on February 6 , 1958 , the Air Force 2700th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Squadron and 100 Navy personnel equipped with hand held sonar and galvanic drag and cable sweeps mounted a search . On April 16 , the military announced the search had been unsuccessful . Based on a hydrologic survey , the bomb was thought by the Department of Energy to lie buried under 5 to 15 feet ( 2 to 5 m ) of silt at the bottom of Wassaw Sound . In 2004 , retired Air Force Colonel Derek Duke claimed to have narrowed the possible resting spot of the bomb to a small area approximately the size of a football field . He and his partner located the area by trawling in their boat with a Geiger counter in tow . Secondary radioactive particles four times naturally occurring levels were detected and mapped , and the site of radiation origination triangulated . Subsequent investigations found the source of the radiation was natural . In any case , a Geiger counter is not efficient in detecting alpha radiation from enriched uranium , because of the minimal ability of alpha particle to penetrate water ( a few millimeter at most ) . Ongoing concerns . The risk of corrosion of the bomb ' s alloy casing is lessened if it is completely covered in sand . But if part of the casing is exposed to seawater due to the shifting strata in which it is buried , rapid corrosion could occur , as demonstrated in simulation experiments . Eventually , the highly enriched uranium could leach out of the device and enter the aquifer surrounding the continental shelf in that area . Storms , hurricanes , and strong currents frequently shift the sand there . To date , no undue levels of unnatural radioactive contamination have been detected in the regional Upper Floridan aquifer by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources ( over and above the already high levels thought to be due to monazite , a locally occurring sand naturally high in radiation ) . This event , as well as the 1956 B - 47 disappearance , were the basis for NCIS Episode " Broken Arrow , " which aired in 2010 . < nowiki > * BBC . co . uk , BBC audio programme on the Tybee Bomb , streaming audio < - - - > < / nowiki >