Oops: Errant National Guard Bomb Drops on Oklahoma Apartment Complex
Friday, March 14, 2008

The mid-sized middle American city of Tulsa, Okla., isn't exactly known as a war zone.

So you can imagine Jeremy Isbell's surprise when he and his wife returned home Thursday night to find an errant military bomb had been dropped on their apartment, knocking out their electricity and part of the wall of their bathroom.

Isbell told the Tulsa World newspaper that he went outside to alert electric company employees, who were on the scene looking for the cause of the power outage.

Needless to say, federal authorities are also interested in the cause.

Investigators are trying to figure out why the dummy bomb traveling at about 600 mph dropped on Isbell's apartment complex. The 22-pound non-explosive practice bomb mistakenly fell from an Air National Guard jet, police said Friday.

No one was hurt in the incident, the Tulsa World reports.

The fighter aircraft was en route to Smokey Hill Gunnery Range in Salina, Kan., on a routine mission, according to a statement released Friday by the Oklahoma Air National Guard's 138th Fighter Wing.

The pilot thought he had dropped the BDU-33 bomb, equipped with a dummy warhead, over a field in Kansas during a routine training mission out of Tulsa, on Thursday.

Instead, shortly after takeoff, the training bomb was inadvertently released from the aircraft, the guard statement said.

A safety investigation board has been convened and the investigation is ongoing, the statement indicated.

The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are also investigating.

Willingham said the Air National Guard removed the ordnance from the scene.

[link to www.foxnews.com]