Home Air German Air Force finds bombs lost by Tornado fighter over Nordhorn Range

German Air Force finds bombs lost by Tornado fighter over Nordhorn Range

German Air Force Tornado
German Air Force file photo

Both bombs inadvertently dropped by a German Air Force Tornado fighter jet over the Nordhorn Range in Lower Saxony have been accounted for, the service said on March 3.

On March 2, two training bombs “prematurely detached” from the aircraft during a training approach and fell into the immediate surveillance area of the drop zone.

The bombs are equipped only with smoke cartridges that produce a white-gray cloud when they hit the ground and do not contain any explosives. Nevertheless, before they were discovered a day later, the service sent out a statement urging the the public not to touch the bombs.

A search party managed to find the bombs before the public, while the service launched an investigation into the incident. The premature release of the munitions did not cause any damage, according to the German Air Force.

In an unrelated but somewhat similar incident from September 2019, a Tornado fighter lost its fuel tanks at an altitude of 6,000 meters as it was returning from a Baltic Sea mission.