London City Airport Closed due to Unexploded Bomb
Discussion
UXB discovered at 5am Sunday morning in King George V dock, by 10pm the Royal Navy Bomb Disposal team decided it was a viable device so have evacuated the area and closed the airport. 
Makes you wonder how many other devices there must be in the River Thames and surrounds that we don't know about.
Makes you wonder how many other devices there must be in the River Thames and surrounds that we don't know about.
Willy Nilly said:
There was always going to be an aviation acronym for an unexploded bomb.
UXB (or more commonly UXO) is a general term, not limited to or derived from aviation.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexploded_ordnance
Overreaction?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Almost certainly not.
RAF bombs of the period, for comparison.
Two things to consider.
1. The potential for the bomb to detonate, and the damage the resultant water spout and blast wave might do to the airport, any aeroplanes in the air at the time, and any persons in the vicinity.
2. The potential for vibrations and disturbance of the air around the airport to disrupt attempts to safely neutralise the device.
No one wants to be the one to make the decision that risks bystanders or Bomb Disposal Operators getting killed or injured by the device, and there may well be a lot of 'mitigation work' to be done before work on the device can begin. It's not just life and limb that has to be protected, but property too.
If it's small and unstable, it may be blown "in situ" after assessing the relative merits of crew risk to property damage. If it's large and close to infrastructure? It'll HAVE to be rendered safe and removed as scrap. A big old parachute mine "going off" could damage sewer systems, any underground railways, tunnels, etc in the area. Electricity, gas and water supplies could be damaged. These things were, after all, designed to destroy large parts of urban areas in one hit. The British 4,000lb bomb contained 1,400 kg of amatol. They weren't called "Blockbusters" for nothing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENdDKltgfg8
Film of a 550lb bomb detonated in Munich. Similar to the British 500lb Medium Capacity bomb, which contained 66 kg of TNT or Amatol.
I've seen the original WWII maps in the RE EOD archive. They are marked with the locations of all KNOWN bomb explosions and period reported UXO. Comparison with Luftwaffe records, and RAF intelligence about the composition of raids tells us what aircraft and ordnance types were loaded on raids, and comparison with the drop pattern on archive maps allows estimates to be made of where there are "missing" bombs, and what types of bomb they were likely to be. Suffice to say that there is still A LOT of missing ordnance in the ground in both the UK and Germany, as well as elsewhere in Europe. Mostly it gets found and dealt with, but there are cases of bombs being disturbed by construction work and detonating, and even some cases of undisturbed ordnance spontaneously detonating underground... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RN0Xj4ZUBo
I also know from my old job just how often the 1-Hour Bomb Disposal team were called out on jobs. It's more often than you'd think. The thing about the German parachute mines is that unlike a "missing" detonation from a stick of conventional bombs, you can't predict the impact point of a parachute mine, so they were harder to find and clear at the end of WWII if their parachutes failed to open, or they fell in the Thames.
In summary, I'd say it's not an overreaction, but lets just wait and see what type of device it is before slinging any mud. Remember where London City Airport was built, too. It's in the heart of a dock complex that was a MAJOR target for the Luftwaffe during the London blitz. This may not be the only device found during "ongoing development works"...
ETA:
Oh, and don't forget that during WWII, the Germans were continually trying to devise fiendish ways to prevent EOD operators from successfully dealing with unexploded or deliberately delayed action ordnance... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnQ_pS4T0vI
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150922-these-naz...
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Almost certainly not.
RAF bombs of the period, for comparison.
Two things to consider.
1. The potential for the bomb to detonate, and the damage the resultant water spout and blast wave might do to the airport, any aeroplanes in the air at the time, and any persons in the vicinity.
2. The potential for vibrations and disturbance of the air around the airport to disrupt attempts to safely neutralise the device.
No one wants to be the one to make the decision that risks bystanders or Bomb Disposal Operators getting killed or injured by the device, and there may well be a lot of 'mitigation work' to be done before work on the device can begin. It's not just life and limb that has to be protected, but property too.
If it's small and unstable, it may be blown "in situ" after assessing the relative merits of crew risk to property damage. If it's large and close to infrastructure? It'll HAVE to be rendered safe and removed as scrap. A big old parachute mine "going off" could damage sewer systems, any underground railways, tunnels, etc in the area. Electricity, gas and water supplies could be damaged. These things were, after all, designed to destroy large parts of urban areas in one hit. The British 4,000lb bomb contained 1,400 kg of amatol. They weren't called "Blockbusters" for nothing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENdDKltgfg8
Film of a 550lb bomb detonated in Munich. Similar to the British 500lb Medium Capacity bomb, which contained 66 kg of TNT or Amatol.
I've seen the original WWII maps in the RE EOD archive. They are marked with the locations of all KNOWN bomb explosions and period reported UXO. Comparison with Luftwaffe records, and RAF intelligence about the composition of raids tells us what aircraft and ordnance types were loaded on raids, and comparison with the drop pattern on archive maps allows estimates to be made of where there are "missing" bombs, and what types of bomb they were likely to be. Suffice to say that there is still A LOT of missing ordnance in the ground in both the UK and Germany, as well as elsewhere in Europe. Mostly it gets found and dealt with, but there are cases of bombs being disturbed by construction work and detonating, and even some cases of undisturbed ordnance spontaneously detonating underground... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RN0Xj4ZUBo
I also know from my old job just how often the 1-Hour Bomb Disposal team were called out on jobs. It's more often than you'd think. The thing about the German parachute mines is that unlike a "missing" detonation from a stick of conventional bombs, you can't predict the impact point of a parachute mine, so they were harder to find and clear at the end of WWII if their parachutes failed to open, or they fell in the Thames.
In summary, I'd say it's not an overreaction, but lets just wait and see what type of device it is before slinging any mud. Remember where London City Airport was built, too. It's in the heart of a dock complex that was a MAJOR target for the Luftwaffe during the London blitz. This may not be the only device found during "ongoing development works"...
ETA:
Oh, and don't forget that during WWII, the Germans were continually trying to devise fiendish ways to prevent EOD operators from successfully dealing with unexploded or deliberately delayed action ordnance... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnQ_pS4T0vI
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150922-these-naz...
Edited by yellowjack on Monday 12th February 09:34
Willy Nilly said:
There was always going to be an aviation acronym for an unexploded bomb.
You must be younghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O09YA2zZhh8
schmunk said:
Willy Nilly said:
There was always going to be an aviation acronym for an unexploded bomb.
UXB (or more commonly UXO) is a general term, not limited to or derived from aviation.
Likely still a few more sitting in the bed of the Thames around that area from almost 80 years ago.
If its a Herman, then likely only a little bit of an over-reaction, and anything less than a Herman it is an over-reaction, but then, that's the modern way of doing things in our ever more litigious society we now have to wrap society up in ever increasing amounts of cotton-wool to protect us from the legal vultures.........
yellowjack said:
I've seen the original WWII maps in the RE EOD archive. They are marked with the locations of all KNOWN bomb explosions and period reported UXO. Comparison with Luftwaffe records, and RAF intelligence about the composition of raids tells us what aircraft and ordnance types were loaded on raids, and comparison with the drop pattern on archive maps allows estimates to be made of where there are "missing" bombs, and what types of bomb they were likely to be. Suffice to say that there is still A LOT of missing ordnance in the ground in both the UK and Germany, as well as elsewhere in Europe.
Is that map publicly available? I see there's this onehttp://www.bombsight.org/#14/51.5027/0.0327
And a company selling ;bomb risk' maps but not what you're describing.
FunkyNige said:
yellowjack said:
I've seen the original WWII maps in the RE EOD archive. They are marked with the locations of all KNOWN bomb explosions and period reported UXO. Comparison with Luftwaffe records, and RAF intelligence about the composition of raids tells us what aircraft and ordnance types were loaded on raids, and comparison with the drop pattern on archive maps allows estimates to be made of where there are "missing" bombs, and what types of bomb they were likely to be. Suffice to say that there is still A LOT of missing ordnance in the ground in both the UK and Germany, as well as elsewhere in Europe.
Is that map publicly available? I see there's this onehttp://www.bombsight.org/#14/51.5027/0.0327
And a company selling ;bomb risk' maps but not what you're describing.
I had a lot to do with 'EOC' or the Explosive Ordnance Clearance Group. Sarah, the archivist, almost always had an original map open on her desk, and those old 'inch scale' maps had to be compared with modern scale maps, then changes accounted for, and finally the locations of the impact points plotted on modern maps and digitised. It was most of her job. There's a big archive of original maps, notebooks, etc which are really the only sources of information to work on.
There's also the German records. One good thing about the Germans was their attention to detail. Their fuses are clearly marked with type and serial numbers, etc. So there's a good chance that the EOD team working on this bomb will know what type of fuse(s) they are dealing with, and there's an extensive knowledge of how to deal with specific fuses and potential booby-traps. Most of the methods for dealing with WWII devices are effectively the same as the WWII crews were using. Just modernised versions of the equipment.
Some of the gear used is described here... http://www.rafbdassociation.com/wartime-equipment....
Andy-SP2 said:
That is one of the bigger bombs used by the Luftwaffe.Andy-SP2 said:
So, not a Herman then.Andy-SP2 said:
aeropilot said:
If its a Herman, then likely only a little bit of an over-reaction, and anything less than a Herman it is an over-reaction, but then, that's the modern way of doing things in our ever more litigious society we now have to wrap society up in ever increasing amounts of cotton-wool to protect us from the legal vultures.........
That might well be true, but if I knew they were defusing a 500kg bomb down the road, I would be more than happy to spend the night in a leisure centre while they sort it out.
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