Broken Arrow
The B43 was never used in combat, but it was involved in a nuclear accident when an A-4E Skyhawk, BuNo 151022, of the USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14) (from Attack Squadron VA-56), was lost off the coast of Japan on 5 December 1965 when it rolled off an elevator, in 16,000 feet of water in the Pacific Ocean, 80 miles from one of the Ryukyu Islands, Okinawa. The Skyhawk was being rolled from the number 2 hangar bay to the number 2 elevator when it was lost. The pilot LTJG D. M. Webster, airframe, and the bomb were never found. No public mention was made of the incident at the time and it would not come to light until a 1981 Pentagon report revealed that a one-megaton bomb had been lost. Japan then asked for details of the incident.
Read more about this topic: B43 Nuclear Bomb
Famous quotes containing the words broken and/or arrow:
“The talk not of Inconstancy,
False Hearts, and broken Vows;
If I, by Miracle, can be
This live-long Minute true to thee,
‘Tis all that Heav’n allows.”
—John Wilmot, 2d Earl Of Rochester (1647–1680)
“... and the next summer she died in childbirth.
That’s all. Of course, there may be some sort of sequel but it is not known to me. In such cases instead of getting bogged down in guesswork, I repeat the words of the merry king in my favorite fairy tale: Which arrow flies for ever? The arrow that has hit its mark.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)