The US Navy is considering salvaging four unarmed bombs dropped on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef after a training exercise went wrong.
The two AV-8B Harrier jets launched from aircraft carrier USS Bonhomme Richard each jettisoned an inert bomb and an unarmed explosive bomb on the World Heritage site on Tuesday, the US 7th Fleet said.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the government manager of the 133,360 square mile (345,400 square km) protected zone, said in a statement that identifying options for the “rapid recovery” of the bombs so that they could pose no risk to the marine park was “a high priority”.
But the authority also said the ordinances posed a “low risk to the marine environment”.
“Based on where the ordnance have been dropped in a location that is in water around 164ft (50m) deep, about 19 miles (30km) from the nearest reef and 31 miles (50km) from the shoreline, the immediate impact on the marine environment is thought to be negligible,” the statement said.
Read more at Sky News.