haul in

live bomb

SHOCKED fishermen Alan Hylands and Gary Smart sparked a major sea alert after netting a 500lb unexploded German bomb.

The pair, fishing off Seaford, were stunned when they hauled up their nets to find the metre-long aeroplane bomb among hundreds of mullet.

Staring death in the face, father-of-four Alan, 39,

and Gary, 32, both from Newhaven, kept cool and called for emergency coastguard assistance.

They were ordered to carefully lower the unstable bomb gently back into the water and mark the spot

for Navy bomb disposal experts.

Due to fading light, the bomb had to be left in

shallow waters all night. A one-mile exclusion zone around the bomb was set up by Solent coastguard to protect other boats, alerted to the hazard on various radio frequencies.

Yesterday, a team from the Explosives Ordinance Disposals unit from Ports-mouth dived to the bomb and then blew it up, sending a ten foot-high plume of water into the air and creating a six-foot crater in the seabed.

The drama unfolded at 3.25pm on Saturday when Alan and Gary, who has two little girls, were on their boat Sarah Lina during a routine fishing trip.

Alan said: "When we got the trawl up, we could see what looked like a propane gas bottle in the nets. We didn't panic exactly, but it was very unnerving. It was banging against the boat.

"Coastguards told us to keep it wet and tow it back into shallow water.

Lieut Graham Wilson, who led the EOD dive team, said: "The crew of the Sarah Lina were excellent. They did all the right things. They were very lucky."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.