I noticed a couple weeks ago someone wrote about the BOMARC missile incident. It just so happened that I wrote a fairly large paper on this subject while I was a senior at Rutgers. I'm not even sure if I still have the disk with the stored information but I do have the actual report on paper (25-30 pages long). I'm almost positive that I saved all of my resources ( in a huge box). If anyone was interested I'd be more than happy to share this info.
Quick overview:
BOMARC stood for: Boeing Michigan Aeronautical Research Center
The site occupied 218 acres just east of Ocean County Route 539 in Plumsted Township. The facility was 11 miles east of McGuire AFB.
The missile silos were constructed in the late 1950's and early 1960's and was deactivated in 1972. The incident that everybody talks about occurred on June 7, 1960. A fire broke out while fueling a BOMARC missile and the nuclear tipped warhead burned to the ground. Obviously this released plutonium into the ground, which the USAF tried to fix by simply laying concrete over it. The small explosion actually ripped the roof off of the silo and the USAF painted the silo, hoping to contain the radiation. The area did have a high amounts of radiation and the government never wanted to admit that anyone's health was at risk. Even though they conducted ground water tests every so many years.
The fire burned for approximately 1 hour and was extinguished by using water. The problem with using water was that it simply washed all of the plutonium into the ground.
The biggest problem they found was a chemical known as TCE. TCE was used to clean many parts and would find its way into the ground with ease.
Some people will say that BOMARC missiles were not nuclear tipped, which is true to some extent. Some did have conventional warheads but the ones based at McGuire had nuclear tips (100% true).
Facts:
Based out of the USAF's 46th Air Defense Missile Squadron.
56 nuclear tipped missiles were at the ready.
1 to 15 kilogram nuclear tipped warheads.
The original teletype at 3:15 PM read: From the State Police Troop C in Trenton "Atom....ic....head....ex...plosion."
I believe for the first 8 minutes state, government and military officials thought an atomic weapon had detonated in NJ! The news was then spread that it was "just a fire."
The idea behind the BOMARC missile was that Russia would attack us with a large number of long-range bombers equiped with atomic weapons (days before the ICBM). The BOMARC was designed to simply shoot up into the sky and create a large nuclear blast, knocking out the Russian planes.
The missile looked more like a jet with 2 ramjet engines.
Sorry for the long post, I guess if you research something for 6 months you gather a lot of information. Let me know if you would like more, I have the newspaper articles, USAF studies, etc etc etc.
Quick overview:
BOMARC stood for: Boeing Michigan Aeronautical Research Center
The site occupied 218 acres just east of Ocean County Route 539 in Plumsted Township. The facility was 11 miles east of McGuire AFB.
The missile silos were constructed in the late 1950's and early 1960's and was deactivated in 1972. The incident that everybody talks about occurred on June 7, 1960. A fire broke out while fueling a BOMARC missile and the nuclear tipped warhead burned to the ground. Obviously this released plutonium into the ground, which the USAF tried to fix by simply laying concrete over it. The small explosion actually ripped the roof off of the silo and the USAF painted the silo, hoping to contain the radiation. The area did have a high amounts of radiation and the government never wanted to admit that anyone's health was at risk. Even though they conducted ground water tests every so many years.
The fire burned for approximately 1 hour and was extinguished by using water. The problem with using water was that it simply washed all of the plutonium into the ground.
The biggest problem they found was a chemical known as TCE. TCE was used to clean many parts and would find its way into the ground with ease.
Some people will say that BOMARC missiles were not nuclear tipped, which is true to some extent. Some did have conventional warheads but the ones based at McGuire had nuclear tips (100% true).
Facts:
Based out of the USAF's 46th Air Defense Missile Squadron.
56 nuclear tipped missiles were at the ready.
1 to 15 kilogram nuclear tipped warheads.
The original teletype at 3:15 PM read: From the State Police Troop C in Trenton "Atom....ic....head....ex...plosion."
I believe for the first 8 minutes state, government and military officials thought an atomic weapon had detonated in NJ! The news was then spread that it was "just a fire."
The idea behind the BOMARC missile was that Russia would attack us with a large number of long-range bombers equiped with atomic weapons (days before the ICBM). The BOMARC was designed to simply shoot up into the sky and create a large nuclear blast, knocking out the Russian planes.
The missile looked more like a jet with 2 ramjet engines.
Sorry for the long post, I guess if you research something for 6 months you gather a lot of information. Let me know if you would like more, I have the newspaper articles, USAF studies, etc etc etc.