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Fisherman lands guided missile

A Florida fisherman has landed an air-to-air guided missile that could have exploded at any moment. Rodney Salomon reeled in the missile, attached it to his boat and kept fishing in the Gulf of Mexico for another 10 days before returning to port.

“I had it strapped to the roof of my boat as we rode through lightning storms,” Mr Salomon told Tampa Bay’s 10 Connects News.

The bomb squad dismantled the heavily corroded eight-foot-long missile when he returned to shore.

Chrissy Cuttita, spokeswoman at Eglin Air Force Base, said it was an “AIM-9 missile, it was released by an F-15 in August 16, 2004 during an exercise… at Tyndall Base in Panama City.”

Mr Salomon asked the bomb squad if he could keep the missile as a souvenir after it was made safe, but the request was denied. Days after the find, Mr Salomon says he landed another missile - but that one was beeping so he decided to let it go.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .