A World War II-era bomb weighing 1,000 pounds was discovered on Tuesday at a regional airport in Florida, triggering evacuations until authorities confirmed the ordnance was inert, officials reported.
Construction workers stumbled upon what appeared to be a “very old” Mark 65 bomb while carrying out work at the future site of the Wilton Simpson Technical College campus in the northeast section of the Brooksville Tampa Bay Regional Airport, Hernando County Sheriff Al Nienhuis disclosed.
Due to the bomb’s extensive rust and decay, it was initially challenging to ascertain whether the ordnance was active or inert, Nienhuis explained in a video message shared on Facebook.
The potential explosive find led to evacuations spanning approximately half a mile in all directions and a temporary closure of a nearby road. Responding to the scene, the Citrus County bomb squad confirmed that the military ordnance was inert, according to the sheriff’s office. A team from MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa was dispatched to dispose of the inert bomb.
The Mark 65, historically used during World War II, served as a general-purpose bomb employed to target fortified structures such as dams, concrete, or steel railroad bridges, as detailed by the National Museum of the United States Air Force.
Describing the bomb as an unguided gravity bomb, Dr. Angie Zambek, an associate professor of history at UNC Wilmington, informed FOX13 Tampa that it essentially comprised TNT encased in metal.
