BOMARC Missile Accident Site



The BOMARC Missile Accident Site ("BOMARC Site RW-01") is a 75 acre fenced-off radiological waste site of the United States Air Force Installation Restoration Program contaminated primarily with "weapons-grade plutonium (WGP), with lesser activities of highly-enriched and depleted uranium." The central features of the site are the remains of Launcher Shelter 204, which stored the CIM-10 Bomarc missile (one of fifty-four at the base) that caused a Cold War nuclear accident in the Launch Area on the Fort Dix military reservation.

1960 Fort Dix IM-99 accident
"On 7 June 1960, an explosion in a helium tank [between the missile's fuel tanks] took place in Shelter 204 causing a fire in a liquid-fueled, nuclear-tipped BOMARC missile. The fire burned uninhibited for about 30 minutes. Firefighting activities, using water as a suppressant, were conducted for 15 hours. As a result, materials from the shelter flowed under the front shelter doors, down the asphalt apron and street between the row of shelters, and into the drainage ditch". "Contamination was restricted to an area immediately beneath the weapon and an adjacent elongated area approximately 100 feet long". A nuclear response team from Griffiss Air Force Base found "no trace of dispersed radiation" during spot checks "outside the facility's boundaries" for 66 mi. Approximately 300 g of WGP was not recovered, and "a significant fraction of the radiological material contained in the weapon [was] shipped…to Medina Base, San Antonio TX" and then to Amarillo. After repairs to the Lakehurst rail line from April 2002 through May 27, 2004, 21998 yd3 of "contaminated debris and soils were packaged, shipped, and disposed" at Clive, Utah, 80 mi west of Salt Lake City; the remains of the shelter were removed. In 2005, the contaminated area was estimated as 7 acres and ~60 yd3 were additionally remediated by 2007. The 1972 RW-01 perimeter fence with height 6 ft topped with barbed wire was extended by 2007 to include a larger area on the south. A 2013 study compared the characteristics of the accident's particle release with the nuclear warhead disperals of the 1966 Palomares B-52 crash and 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash.

BOMARC Base No. 1
BOMARC Base No. 1 was the New Jersey missile launch complex of 218 acre within the "Range and Impact Area" at the Northeast corner of Fort Dix. The military installation was 1 of 2 Cold War BOMARC bases of the New York Air Defense Sector (cf. Long Island's Suffolk County Missile Annex). The Formerly Used Defense Site was the 1st operational BOMARC base and had both a "Missile Support Area" with a Squadron Operations Center and a "Launch Area" with 56 Mode II Launcher Shelters in 2 flights (e.g., 2 compressor buildings were available to simultaneously get 2 missiles to the "Standby" stage prior to "Fire-up".)   The missile complex was an annex of McGuire Air Force Base 6 mi to the west where the sector's SAGE Direction Center  (DC-01) was the missile launch control center. By 1955 the base was planned for January 1960 operations as the 1st BOMARC site (construction began January 1958), and it became operational on 1 September 1959 with 3 IM-99A missiles (24 by 1 January). In December 1959, Col. Robert E. Stuart was the base commander, the 46th Air Defense Missile Squadron (BOMARC) commander was Lt. Col. Ernest B. Sheppard, and the Boeing support office was in New Egypt.