No Injuries; Explosives Unarmed, but Irvine Officials Express Concern : Crippled Jet Jettisons Bombs at El Toro Base

An attack bomber experiencing engine trouble Friday jettisoned six 500-pound, high-explosive bombs, six inert practice bombs and two fuel tanks over the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station before landing safely at the base.

Although the bombs were unarmed and did not explode, military officials asked the California Highway Patrol to close a section of Trabuco Road along the eastern border of the base for about half an hour during the incident Friday morning.

CHP spokesman Paul Caldwell said the Marine Corps “just told us they had a couple bombs and they were close enough to the road to present a danger. . . . They didn’t tell us much except the bombs were there.”

There was little danger that the bombs would explode, Lt. Shawn Cooper, a Marine spokeswoman, said. They could not have exploded unless the plane’s bombardier-navigator had activated them, she explained. They also will not explode unless dropped from a certain minimum free-fall altitude, and these bombs hit the runway from a height of only 50 feet, Cooper added.

The bombs were defused by a Marine Corps ordnance team, Cooper said. Although one of the fuel tanks ignited on impact, emergency crews, waiting at the drop site, quickly extinguished the flames.

Officials from the City of Irvine, which borders the military base to the west and south, expressed concern about the incident when they learned about it late Friday from newspaper reporters. “I was not notified (by the Marine Corps),” Irvine Police Chief Leo Peart said. “I would have liked to have been notified.”

Peart said the city’s newly formed Public Safety Commission will hold hearings in January to explore how the Marine Corps manages its aircraft on the borders of Irvine, which is largely a residential community.

“I think overall we’re certainly going to be monitoring what we learn from today’s incident,” Peart said.

Irvine City Councilman Dave Baker called Friday’s incident “a matter of great concern.” The base “is tremendously important as a tactical military base for the rest of the country. The key is how do we live together,” Baker said, adding that he would like to see improved communications between the city and the Marine Corps concerning base operations.

Also worried about the incident was Stan Corey, superintendent of the Irvine Unified School District. “We have many school facilities near to being under their flight path,” Corey said. “I just knew I was going to get questions” from parents, “but it looks to me like they (the Marines) handled it properly.”

According to Lt. Cooper, the A-6E jet took off about 7:15 a.m. Friday from Runway 7, headed for a routine training mission near the desert community of Twentynine Palms.

“Immediately at takeoff, right as it started climbing, it had engine troubles,” Cooper said.

She said the aircraft immediately jettisoned six Mark-76 high-explosive bombs, another six practice bombs--which contained no explosives--and two fuel tanks onto the air station’s Runway 25. The jet then proceeded east toward the mountains, made a right turn and landed safely on Runway 34 at 7:20 a.m.

Though the bombs supposedly could not explode after they hit, Marine Corps ordnance crews immediately defused them, Gunnery Sgt. Kathy Cabot said. Cabot explained that even an unarmed bomb could become unstable after being dropped.

The aircraft’s pilot, Capt. David H. Miller, and its bombardier-navigator, Lt. Joseph Sculley, were not injured. The cause of the engine trouble is under investigation by Marine Corps officials, Lt. Cooper said.

Cooper praised the crew’s performance: “The crew followed procedures by the book. Through their skills in following the standards, they kept within the perimeter of our air station and prevented any damage or loss of life.”

It is standard procedure to jettison both fuel and bombs whenever an aircraft has to make an emergency landing, Cooper said, explaining that if they remained on board, their weight would probably cause the plane to crash.