Atomic Express

The errant “Beast of Kandahar” RQ-170 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (technically they are not ‘drones’-see below) lost over Iran calls to mind a Cold War event still shrouded in mystery. In the mid-1940s the Northrop company developed the SM-62 intercontinental cruise missile, better known as the “Snark.” Development on this system was conducted concurrently with bombers and ICBMs in the 1950s in part to ensure that no stone was left unturned and no gap left uncovered in the nuclear weapons and delivery system competition with the Soviet Union. As with many technologically-advanced weapons systems of those halcyon years, the Snark  proved to be problematic. Numerous test shots off Patrick AFB (later Cape Canaveral) in the 1950s which resulted in loses of the test airframes led to serious media derision about ‘Snark infested waters’which undermined confidence in the system. In 1957, a Snark disappeared during a flight to Ascension Island. The flight profile was to have the missile reach the target area, turn around, and head back to Florida.  This, needless to say, did not happen.

According to an ex-CIA employee writing in Air Force Magazine in December 1984,  “When last seen, the Snark was off the coast of Venezuela, flying a south-easterly course towards the vast expanse of Brazil’s Amazon jungle….”

Hmmmm……Maybe, but maybe not.  In 1983, a Snark was found in the Amazon jungles of Brazil. This Snark, however, was different. It apparently was modified for aerial reconnaissance. So how did an intercontinental cruise missile, one that was supposedly unreliable,  transition to a strategic recce platform? We do know that Lockheed built a low-observable drone (yes, it was a DRONE, not a UAV-see below) the D-21 which was launched from a B-52 and used over China, searching for Chinese nuclear weapons production facilities later on in the 1960s. Drones were used for recce over North Vietnam as well. It is possible a recce drone version of the Snark was some sort of interim vehicle before the D-21 came on the scene. I shot this D-21 for your edification at the Pima Air Museum in Arizona:

A number of D-21′s were also lost over China.

Given the sensitivity of the situation in Cuba, however, and the fact that a USAF U-2 was shot down in 1962, it is possible these Snarks were used over Cuba and one went off course and continued on to the Amazon.  According to Randy Campbell at The Unwanted Blog,

“On the ‘other’ hand the “final” navigation system worked so well that it caused the US to instigate an upgrade of all Navigational charts over a ‘failure’ of the Snark to hit a designated target. The test Snark “missed” Ascension Island and its “target” CEP (Circular Error Probability) by EXACTLY four miles. The following investigation showed that ALL nautical and navigational charts of the time showed the island to be EXACTLY four miles away from where it ‘really’ was.”

If that is the case, then the Snark would have been an acceptable unmanned platform for this sort of operation-and deniable to a certain extent because Snarks were getting lost off Patrick AFB. However, the Association of Air Force Missileers noted in their journal that the CEP tended to be 20 miles. And here is a picture of 30 of the 51 Snarks being dismantled.

Cold War pop cultural reference:  Ian Fleming’s 1958 007 novel “Dr. No.” mentions the diversion of a Snark into the Brazilian jungles….

[Drone versus UAV:  A drone is not piloted from the ground. It is a machine that has a pre-programmed flight path from a launch point to a recovery point and does not respond to mid-course guidance. A UAV is flown from the ground by a human being.]