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:
“... this nation is rotten at the heart, and ... nothing but the most tremendous blows with the sledge-hammer of abolition truth, could ever have broken the false rest which we had taken up for ourselves on the very brink of ruin.”
—Angelina Grimké (1805–1879)
“It is easy to dodge a spear in the daylight, but it is difficult to avoid an arrow in the dark.”
—Chinese proverb.