Introduction The 1958 C-130 shootdown incident was the shooting down of an American Lockheed C-130A-II-LM reconnaissance aircraft which had intruded into Soviet airspace during a reconnaissance mission along the Turkish-Armenian border. Incident On 02 September 1958, a Lockheed C-130A-II-LM (s/n 56-0528), from the 7406th Support Squadron, departed Incirlik Airbase in Turkey on a reconnaissance mission… Read More
Introduction RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, one of several air bases in the United Kingdom (UK) used by the United States Air Force (USAF) to store nuclear weapons during the Cold War, was the site of two nuclear near-disasters, in 1956 and 1961. Two incidents involving aircraft crashes and subsequent fires causing damage to nuclear weapons… Read More
Introduction The United States Air Force (USAF) Weapons School is a unit of the United States Air Force, assigned to the 57th Wing. It is located at Nellis Air Force Base (AFB), Nevada. Mission The mission of the USAF Weapons School is to teach graduate-level instructor courses, which provide advanced training in weapons and tactics… Read More
Introduction United Airlines Flight 736 was a daily transcontinental passenger flight in the United States operated by United Airlines. On 21 April 1958, the Douglas DC-7 serving the flight crashed in southern Nevada following a mid-air collision. The aircraft assigned to Flight 736, an airliner with 47 aboard (42 passengers, 5 crew), was flying at… Read More
Introduction The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB /ˈmoʊæb/, colloquially known as the “Mother of All Bombs”) is a large-yield bomb, developed for the United States military by Albert L. Weimorts, Jr. of the Air Force Research Laboratory. At the time of development, it was said to be the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in the… Read More
Introduction The Green Ramp disaster was a 1994 mid-air collision and subsequent ground collision at Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina. It killed twenty-four members of the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division preparing for an airborne operation. It was the worst peacetime loss of life suffered by the division since the end of World… Read More
Introduction The 1966 Palomares B-52 crash, also called the Palomares incident, occurred on 17 January 1966, when a B-52G bomber of the United States Air Force’s Strategic Air Command collided with a KC-135 tanker during mid-air refuelling at 31,000 feet (9,450 m) over the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Spain. The KC-135 was completely… Read More
