The morning of January 17, 1966 was the same as any day for the Spanish shrimp fisherman Francisco Simo Orts (38 years). He went alone in his boat to the sea off a small Andalusian port, and he did not know that the drama was about 10,000 meters above his head. And that after minutes, a hydrogen bomb will fall on his head.
And while Francisco was fishing quietly, he suddenly caught his gaze of something strange, very high and of its blue color, and when he blurred his gaze, he saw as if a small lightning bolt was coming down, he saw an umbrella descending towards him carrying a dark mass without movement, so he rushed to the paddles to miraculously survive the bombing, and the sea swallowed the strange package and said In himself, "Oh God. You are the largest flying shrimp I've ever seen."
On that day, according to the French magazine Le Point, an American bomber lost its four bombs over the Andalusian coast after colliding with a plane to refuel during the flight, and what was about to fall on Francisco's head was a hydrogen bomb capable of destroying half of Spain.
The magazine said that what happened was caused by the failure to refuel while flying, as the world was in the middle of the Cold War, and the generals in Washington decided to intimidate the "other side" by placing a hydrogen bomb between his eyes, and they issued the order to the B-52 bomber (B-52). Armed with 4 hydrogen bombs, in contact with Soviet airspace, but the game wasn't elaborate, especially when refueling over Spain.
Separate, separate
The exercise in-flight refueling is very difficult, and the pilot of the "B-52", Larry Messinger, began the maneuver and placed the bomber behind the tank plane "KC-135" (KC-135) to attach the steel shaft, but a mistake was made.
The pilot says, "We were approaching the tanker from behind, and we were flying at a good speed, until we started to overtake it, except that there is a procedure when the man carrying the shaft thinks you are getting too close and there is a danger," he shouts (unplug, separate), but no one has Shouting, so we did not see the seriousness of the situation, and suddenly hell broke out. "
The nuclear launcher hit the tank body, killing 4 of his squad, 3 of the seven men on board the bomber, and Larry Messinger and the other survivors managed to parachute.
The four 1.45 megatons of hydrogen bombs were not, fortunately, armed, so they detached automatically and fell under their parachutes, so one of them chose Francisco as a target, while the remaining three landed near the Andalusian port, and no damage occurred because they were not armed, and then did not explode.
As for Francisco, who became nicknamed Paco Labombe (Baku the bomb), the US Navy hired him to find the bomb at the bottom of the water, on a mission that lasted 81 days, and ended up locating "Robert", the nickname given to the bomb, at a depth of 869 meters As it is, it was extracted and returned to the United States.
Baku received compensation, but a lawyer told him that he could get more, so the shrimp fisherman went to Washington to demand the application of a marine law custom that gives the discoverer of debris 1% of its value, but the Pentagon estimated the bomb's cost at two billion dollars, and with time the fisherman's complaint faded, and he was forced to return to The house has empty pockets, and its boat was found unusable, but a Spanish newspaper launched a fundraising campaign for him to buy a new boat.