Worker inadvertantly launches rocket

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Thursday, December 14, 2000

Worker inadvertently launches rocket

BARTOW, Fla. (AP) -- A.R. Connor bulldozed trees and brush into a pile, set them on fire and walked off to get a drink of water. Then came the explosion, as a 2-foot-long, World War II-era rocket blasted out of the fire and crashed into a chain-link fence 700 feet away.

"It sounded like dynamite," he said. "It exploded, hit the fence and dropped down and set the grass afire."

Connor, 78, was clearing ground Wednesday for a new hangar at the city airport when he apparently dug out the rocket inadvertently. The heat from the brush fire was believed to have ignited it.

No one was injured, but the area was evacuated and bomb experts were called, said Michal Shanley, spokeswoman for the Polk County Sheriff.

The airport was a training base for the Army Air Corps during World War II, when it was known as Bartow Air Base. Explosives experts were searching for more buried surprises.

"The military might have dumped a bunch of ordnance in a hole," said Sgt. Joe Spano of the state Fire Marshal's Office bomb squad. "We don't know what's back there."

http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSHeyMartha0012/14_rocket-ap.html

-- Flash gordon (in@earth.orbit), December 14, 2000

Answers

We get unexploded bombs and torpedoes washing up on the beach here. Those WWII guys sure threw a lot of ordinance around, and it didn't all go off when it was supposed to.

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), December 14, 2000.

Flkash Gordon uses colloidal silver for an ennema!

-- Barney Fife (barneyfife@aol.com), December 15, 2000.

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