15 October
1959 – B-52 & KC-135 / Hardinsburg, Kentucky
A B-52 departed Columbus AFB, near Columbus, Mississippi, on a SAC airborne alert mission at 2:30 PM CST and assumed the #2 position in a flight of two aircraft. The KC-135 departed Columbus AFB at 5:33 PM CST as the #2 tanker in a flight of two scheduled to refuel the B-52s. The four aircraft rendezvoused for refueling near Hardinsburg, Kentucky at 32,000 feet. It was after dark, the weather was clear, and there was no turbulence.
Shortly after the #2 B-52 began refueling from its KC-135 tanker, the two aircraft collided about 12 miles south of Hardinsburg. The instructor pilot and pilot of the B-52 ejected, followed by the electronic warfare officer and the radar navigator; these crewmen sustained minor injuries. The copilot, navigator, instructor navigator, and tail gunner failed to leave the B-52 and were killed. The four-man crew of the tanker was killed. The KC-135 broke into two pieces and crashed; the two pieces were on the ground about a mile apart.
The B-52 crashed in essentially one piece at a distance of about three miles from the KC-135 wreckage. The bomber landed at the edge of a wooded area on the side of a small hill and then burned. The tail section was broken off the aircraft just behind the rear landing gear and remained in relatively large pieces. One section of the aft fuselage approximately eight to ten feet long remained intact. Trees were burned for a radius of about 100 yards; the bomber wreckage burned all night and into the following morning.
Only ashes of the forward fuselage, wings, and cockpit were found. Three bodies were found amidst the cockpit residue and the body of the tail gunner was found some distance away on the hillside where he had been thrown upon impact.
Two unarmed gas-boosted, sealed-pit thermonuclear bombs aboard the B-52 were recovered relatively intact after having landed in moist, spongy clay soil which absorbed much of their impact shock. Little or no burning occurred around the weapons despite the presence of a large fuel tank directly above the bomb bay; most of the jet fuel was thrown forward when the fuselage ruptured on impact. Burning was spotty aft of the forward landing gear wheel well and there was little fire in the tail section.
One weapon had been partially burned but this did not result in the explosion of its HE or in the dispersal of any nuclear material or other contamination. The HE in both weapons was shattered and dispersed; the forward case sections of both bombs were intact and unmarred by fire and were found buried nose-down approximately two-thirds of their length in the dirt in the same relative positions which they occupied in the aircraft an about six feet apart. The afterbodies of both weapons were torn off and found a short distance away. The tritium bottles for both weapons were recovered sealed and intact, along with spare detonators. Detonators on the weapons had been ripped loose and loose pieces of HE were evident at every opening in the weapon casings. The pit in each weapon was found lying loose on a pile of broken explosives.
The bombs were later returned to the AEC's Clarksville, Tennessee storage site for inspection and final disposition. There was no radiation detected above normal background level.
Chuck Hansen, “The Swords of Armageddon,” Vol. VII, pp.257-258.
