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In the 1970s. The mysteries in Spain were not circumscribed to the lonely highways and byways, as we can see from the following case: Captain Charles Wendorf's orders were straightforward enough: fly his B- 52 Stratofortress to the Saddle Rock Mid- Air Refueling Area to coast of Spain made Saddle Rock a particularly suitable refueling site. The giant aircraft, an element of the 68th Bomber Squadron out of North Carolina, was in the middle of a long patrol of the Atlantic Ocean, coming as close to the USSR as they dared. But Cold War tension would be the very last factor to affect the B-52's fate. At 10:22 a.m. on January 17, 1966, at an altitude of thirty thousand feet, Captain Wendorf's nuclear-warhead laden Stratofortress sighted the KC-35 some 15 miles ahead in the The B-52 carefully jockeyed into position behind the tanker to connect with its refueling mast--a complex but efficient operation that did not involve any loss in speed on the bomber's part and in which remarkably small amounts of fuel were lost. But something went wrong. An unseen force bumped against the bomber's underside, pushing it upward and causing the KC- 135's starboard wing to graze the B-52's cockpit. The bomber's crew felt another terrible jolt as their plane rammed into the tanker's Fuselage To observers on the ground witnessing the refueling maneuver, the tanker exploded into a ball of orange flame while both military aircraft disintegrated high above the earth. The long-range bomber's crew managed to jump clear of the explosion and was later rescued by Spanish fishermen after having miraculously 57 UFO Casebook gives us more on this event: meet a KC-135 tanker. The clear skies over the Mediterranean refueling zone.