Bombs dropped on Great Barrier Reef marine park

Bombs dropped on Great Barrier Reef marine park

www.guardian.co.uk

Two American fighter jets dropped four unarmed bombs into Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park last week, when a training exercise went wrong, the US Navy said, angering environmentalists.

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Talk about a close shave!

Cannot believe the audacity of the american military on this one.

The Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest network of coral structures, is rich in marine life and stretches more than 3,000km (1,800 miles) along Australia's northeast coast. The reef was extremely fortunate not to have sustained any damage whatsoever.


www.guardian.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by Kluute


Two of the bombs were inert, meaning no warhead, they just make a puff of dust when they land. The other two were unarmed, so the chances of them exploding are very remote. They were all dropped into a marked channel, 60 feet deep, and will almost certainly be salvaged if they haven't already.

They couldn't land with them, and they couldn't drop them on the range for whatever reason. The safest place to drop them was in a channel, in the ocean. They are deep enough they won't pose a hazard for ships until they can be recovered, and they're away from the reef itself so they won't damage the reef.

And the audacity of the Australian military doing similar things. I'll guarantee that they have dropped ordnance in the area as well when they've had to.

reply to post by Zaphod58

And the audacity of the Australian military doing similar things. I'll guarantee that they have dropped ordnance in the area as well when they've had to.

Since the reef IS Australian, i'd say that's their perogative..wouldn't you?

I don't doubt the US would have something to say about it if Aussies started dropping ordnance near Manhattan island.

Also is 60 feet deep enough to prevent damage to ships and boats? I realise it depends on the size of the bomb, but i would have thought a large explosion at 60 feet would do considerable damage to small ships and boats.

well they found and killed Bin laden

So I guess they are trying to find Nemo....and kill him......but I guess that comes with being a red and hense dirty commie fish

reply to post by MysterX


The exercise was in conjunction with the Australians. It wasn't just "We're going to go drop bombs", which means the Australians designated safe areas for drops if the range wasn't available. The Australians have dropped bombs in many locations on US soil and in the waters off the US as well.

Two of them were BDU-45s. They are 500 lb casings, with a very small signal cartridge in it that puts up a puff of smoke so they can see where it landed. The other two were GBU-12s, which are also 500 lb bombs, but they weren't armed at the time, so there was no fuse, or explosive in it.

reply to post by neo96


Pffft everyone knows it was to kill Nemo and dory knwon Al qaeda and North Korean Sympathisers.

this has to be asked. is the US in an UNDECLARED WAR against reefs and the oceans?

this is the SECOND instance of the US NAVY endangering PROTECTED REEFS, in just over six months.
in mid January the US NAVY had a minesweeper run aground and damaged Tubbataha Reef, another "World Heritage Site" reef. a reef they had no business being in.

The US warship hit the upper side of the South Atoll, one of the two main atolls comprising the Tubbataha Reef, at dawn of January 17, while en route to Indonesia. The ship is part of the US naval fleet stationed in Japan, which docked at the former American naval base in Subic Bay for routine refueling, resupply and rest and recreation. It was scheduled to make a brief stop at Puerto Princesa before heading off to its next port call in India when it grazed the reef and got stuck 128 kilometers off Palawan. Read more: globalnation.inquirer.net... Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook

add to that the poisons they used to "clean up" the gulf from the oil spill. not to mention dumping millions of liters of sewage into the waters around subic bay.

MANILA, Philippines—Millions of liters of sewage wastes were dumped in the Philippine waters by US Navy contractor Glenn Defense Marine Asia without proper permits from the government, Senator Loren Legarda, who headed an investigation into the waste dumping incident in Subic Bay in October, said Wednesday. “We are talking here of millions of liters of sewage wastes disposed at sea by Glenn Defense over a period of time, without the requisite permits from the government,” Legarda said in a statement. “They do not even have the necessary accreditation as waste collectors from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA),” Legarda said after the joint investigation of the Senate committees on foreign relations and environment and natural resources into the incident. Read more: globalnation.inquirer.net... Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook

perhaps instead of all the "anti-global warming" B.S. Obama is spewing about he should instead look to his armed forces and all the damage they (with him as commander in chief and thus the HEAD of it) are doing to the environment, the Navy in the seas as well as all that wonderful "depleted uranium" they have been shooting off poisoning land, as well as i'm sure lots of other things that the US armed forces has done to damage the environment.

Originally posted by crazyewok
well they found and killed Bin laden

So I guess they are trying to find Nemo....and kill him......but I guess that comes with being a red and hense dirty commie fish

Possibly they are looking for shrubberies.

2nd

reply to post by generik


It's a joint crusade against the seas

Nuclear submarine HMS Astute runs aground

See the UK is trying to destroy the sea and coastlines too, with nuclear submarines

On a serious note, I found it strange that they mentioned they didn't have enough fuel to return and could not land with their load.

Do they always fuel just enough for the job at hand or is that just for training exercises?

Of course this is just speculation, we/I know nothing of what they were doing. They could have traveled a fair distance and literally couldn't return with the excess weight on them.

reply to post by RAY1990


They had plenty of fuel when they left, but they had to orbit for awhile waiting for the range to clear. The Harrier isn't the most fuel efficient aircraft in the world. For most fighter drags it's six fighters for every one tanker, sometimes two depending on how far they're going. For a Harrier drag from Hawaii to the West Coast, it was two Harriers to one tanker.

reply to post by Zaphod58


I keep reading your comments, catching your avatar out the corner of my eye and it makes me think you where flying one of those jets

I'm beginning to think that Sunstien wasn't all that crazy...

Originally posted by RAY1990
They could have traveled a fair distance and literally couldn't return with the excess weight on them.

It's not the distance that's the factor in returning with ordnance, it's the type of ship, and the landing they have to make. The AV-8B flies off an LHA or LHD class ship

LHA-1 (USS Tarawa):



LHD-5 (USS Bataan):



Aside from the obvious risk of setting off the ordnance on landing, neither of those classes have arresting gear or catapults on them. Their main aircraft is the helicopter. So the AV-8B has to rely on the ability to come in really slowly, and either land normally, or hover over the spot and set down on the deck that way. They can't hover with any significant weight on the wings, and the drag from the bombs would require a faster than normal landing speed for a conventional landing. With no arresting gear to stop them, they'd run the risk of running out of deck.

Man, that's my boy Zaphod!! the man knows his stuff, if I didn't know any better, he'd be the battle buddy that's watching my six downrange!! good call on this thread, beating people to the punch before the, "OMGZZZ!!1111!!!! America is killing the reefzzzz!!!111 evil US!!! RAawrrr!!111"

they were meant to drop them at a dedicated bombing range at Townsend island.
its also a great fishing spot and the exercise was called off due to many hazards (fishing boast around the island)

Townshend Isand

The Island is off Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area. The US and Aus army hold yearly training exercises here.

rumor has it that there are missile silos located in this area

reply to post by Zaphod58


As always, thanks for the information Zaphod

I love asking you aviation related questions, you sure know your planes and how they operate.

reply to post by RAY1990


Always happy to answer them. If I don't know, I love the challenge of finding the answer. I grew up around them, and they tend to get in your blood.

Originally posted by Kluute
and stretches more than 3,000km (1,800 miles) along Australia's northeast coast. The reef was extremely fortunate not to have sustained any damage whatsoever.

The reef has a area of about 70 million football fields, so even if the bombs detonated they may have damaged 1/500,000,000 of it...