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The Department of Defense (DoD) has operated restricted military training ranges over Lake Michigan for more than 30 years. One such range, known as 'range 6903,' covers approximately 288 square miles of Lake Michigan between Port Washington and Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and is about 2 miles from the closest shoreline. Since the late 1950s, this range has been used for training involving air-to-air missiles, air-to-air gunnery, rocketry, aircraft intercepts, air-to-air refueling, bombing, surface-to-surface firing, radar checks, and air combat maneuvers. Six other ranges existed over northern Lake Michigan before the late 1950s, but range 6903 is the only air training range now used. The Sidewinder missile was pulled up in a fishing net by fisherman. They discarded it on the beach on April 15, 1991, where it lay until April 23, 1991, when someone identified it as a Sidewinder missile. A subsequent Army examination disclosed that the warhead on the missile was still armed and capable of exploding. |
