On February 5, 1958, a B-47 Stratojet bomber collided mid-air with an F-86 fighter plane during a simulated night combat mission over Georgia. To protect his crew during an emergency landing, Pilot Howard Richardson jettisoned his heavy payload: a 7,600-pound Mark 15 nuclear bomb. The weapon plunged straight into the murky waters of Wassaw Sound, near Tybee Island.
What followed was a massive, nine-week military search operation that quickly turned into a logistical headache. Joint Air Force and Navy task forces scrambled to drag the seabed using minehunters and primitive sonar, but the expedition was relentlessly plagued by mechanical failures, severe weather, and severe fuel contamination issues in the search vessels. Water and sediment crept into diesel lines, continually clogging filters, destroying injectors, and leaving search craft dead in the water.
Boat crews spent nearly as much time purging contaminated fuel tanks and repairing stalled engines in muddy coastal marshes as they did sweeping the ocean floor. To make matters worse, official reports conflicted on whether the bomb contained a active nuclear core, raising the stakes while crews battled failing machinery. After nine weeks of stalled engines, ruined fuel supplies, and endless silt dragging, the military called off the search.
To this day, the Tybee Island bomb remains buried under feet of coastal mud, sitting peacefully near a popular resort beach.