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Military bomb found in scrap yard

Posted at 7:06 PM, Mar 07, 2016
and last updated 2016-03-08 12:41:58-05
TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - A military bomb has turned up in a Tucson scrap year... Just six months after another bomb in a scrap yard killed a worker who used a torch to cut it open.
 
HVF West Recycling makes a specialty of safely recycling military hardware like aircraft.  About 930 in the morning TPD's Bomb Squad answered a call for what turned out to be a Mark 82 500 pound bomb.
       
The Pima Sheriff's Bomb Squad was there to assist.  
       
Air Force Explosives Disposal specialists from Davis Monthan moved the bomb to a pit on base for a safe disposal.        
        
Video from D-M shows the bomb is dented and without the tail fins that would make it easier to recognize as a bomb.
        
The bomb is so old is hard to see any markings that might help trace it.
 
The scrap yard is right on the edge of Davis-Monthan but that does not mean the base is where that bomb came from.
      
Tucson Police say it's still not clear where the bomb came from that killed 46 year old Daniel Wright September 23rd.  
        
He was working at a different scrap yard, Tucson Iron and Metal.  The police report says a co-worker warned him not to cut into the bomb but he reached inside an opening and thought the bomb case was empty.
        
There was still enough explosive inside to detonate when he used a cutting torch.
         
Police say that bomb was also so old markings were no help.
         
That leaves it a mystery how the bomb made it into a scrap yard.  
 
Just moving a bomb usually takes special equipment.  A Mark 82 bomb weighs 500 pounds, even with explosive removed the casing weighs about three hundred.
        
After the bomb explosion that killed Daniel Wright, Arizona Senator John Mc Cain urged the Secretary of Defenseto find out how the bomb made it into civilian hands.