Risk of explosion low for inert practice bomb.
 

Ever read the news and just shake your head at the stupidity of some reporters? There is just so much wrong here that I will post it as it appeared today - but with some bolding done by me.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) -- The U.S. Navy said on Monday it is considering salvaging four unarmed bombs dropped by U.S. fighter jets into Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park last week when a training exercise went wrong.

The two AV-8B Harrier jets launched from the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard during joint exercises with the Australian military each jettisoned an inert, concrete-filled practice bomb and an unarmed laser-guided explosive bomb into the World Heritage-listed marine park off the coast of Queensland state on Tuesday. None exploded.

The Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest network of coral structures, is rich in marine life and stretches more than 3,000 kilometers (1,800 miles) along Australia's northeast coast.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the government manager of the 345,400 square kilometer (133,360 square miles) protected marine zone, said in a statement that identifying options for the "rapid recovery" of the bombs so that they could pose no risk to the marine park was "a high priority."

But the authority also said the ordnances posed a "low risk to the marine environment."

"Based on where the ordnance have been dropped in a location that is in water around 50 meters (164 feet) deep, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the nearest reef and 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the shoreline, the immediate impact on the marine environment is thought to be negligible," the statement said.

U.S. 7th Fleet spokesman Lt. David Levy said Monday the Navy was currently reviewing the possibility of retrieving the ordnances in consultation with Australian authorities.

"If the park service and the government agencies of Australia determine that they want those recovered, then we will coordinate with them on that recovery process," Levy said in an email.

Levy could not say whether the bombs were damaged or what the effect of long-term immersion in seawater could be.

The four bombs, weighing a total of 900 kilograms (2,000 pounds), were dropped in deep water away from coral to minimize possible damage to the reef, the Navy said.

The jets from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit had intended to drop the ordnances on the Townshend Island bombing range, but aborted the mission when controllers reported civilian boats in the way.

The pilots conducted the emergency jettison because they were low on fuel and could not land with their bomb load, the Navy said.

The authority that manages the marine park said the risk of any bomb detonating was "extremely low."

The emergency happened on the second day of the biennial joint training exercise Talisman Saber, which brings together 28,000 U.S. and Australian military personnel over three weeks.

The Navy and Marine Corps were working with Australian authorities to investigate the incident, the Navy said.

Australian Sen. Larissa Waters, the influential Greens party's spokeswoman on the Great Barrier Reef, described the dumping of bombs in such an environmentally sensitive area as "outrageous" and said it should not be allowed.

"Have we gone completely mad?" she told Australian Broadcasting Corp. "Is this how we look after our World Heritage area now? Letting a foreign power drop bombs on it?"



US considers salvaging bombs from Barrier Reef

"Un-armed" apparently doesn't mean that there were no explosives aboard the laser guided one.

The real issue is contaminants rather than explosions. News media are retards at the best of times but the reef has been in decline for 50 years and they are paranoid about it getting worse.

Shucks. The US used to take beautiful little tropical islands, and nuke them flat.

The local RAAF base has gone through endless EPA wringers and infrastructure changes for the fuel farm, all because some USAF crew dumped the fuel from a plane straight on the tarmac and into a local creek to fix a tank.

This is what armed means in MIL-STD-1316

You can't tell how close you are to a moving target, as in laser guidance, unless you damage it. That is probably why it was real.

Was probably just a DAMDIC or something similar. Just gets dumped next to a target and detonated remotely. The practice round is just dumped near the target and recovered by mental clearance divers.

And now some of those islands are rich natural habitats and nature preserves. No humans around to harvest the wildlife and muck things up.

unarmed might not mean that, but I'm pretty sure that "inert, concrete filled" does mean that there were no explosives.

Are we referring to the reporters' heads or the bombs?

A lot of "inert" weapons still have spotting charges that can go bang, just not nearly as loudly.