F-16 Accidentally Drops Dummy Bomb On Tulsa Apartment Complex

The investigation is underway to figure out how an Air National Guard training bomb fell off a fighter jet and into a Tulsa apartment.  It happened on Thursday afternoon, but the loss wasn't discovered until last night. 

The News On 6's Dan Bewley reports the 25-pound practice bomb landed in the bathroom of an apartment at the Canyon Creek apartment complex.

No one was home at the time, but the family who lives there is still shaken up.

Canyon Creek is located just west of Lewis on 51st Street.

Jeremy Isbell was speechless after his child's bathroom was marked for bull's-eye by a 22-inch training bomb.

"I woke up this morning after having 30 minutes of sleep, and I was like, 'Did this really happen?' I had to go in the bathroom, when the power finally came on. ‘Did I get hit by a missile?' It would make a great dream, but I think it really happened," said Isbell.

It is called a Bomb Dummy Unit 33, the training munition came from as F-16 fighter jet, now under armed guard at the Tulsa Air National Guard Base. The plane took off Thursday afternoon just before three o'clock, in route to a training exercise in Salina, Kansas. After heading south for three miles, it turned right over Canyon Creek apartments, the training bomb, which does not have any explosive material inside, fell from the plane.

Garth Van Wyke heard the impact.

"Extremely loud gunshot or blast, almost like a small cannon or something like that," said Van Wyke.

The pilot wasn't aware the device had fallen and the National Guard is investigating.

"A lot of different speculations as to what might have happened. Some of it could be human error; some of it could be material failure. We just don't know yet," said Major General Bud Wyatt, Oklahoma Air National Guard.

While Isbell waits for answers as well, he's thankful his two young children and wife hadn't made it home.

"Luckily we both stayed at work a little but longer to make up on our hours that we missed and it probably saved our lives, you know," said Isbell.

Major General Wyatt emphasized none of the Air National Guard planes fly over Tulsa with actual bombs or explosives.  He also says until the investigation is complete they will not use any of those training bombs.

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