Another person who never worked at Hanford but was important to its history is Major Charles W. Sweeney. Sweeney was the man who flew the airplane named Bockscar, which dropped the atomic bomb made using Hanford plutonium on the city of Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. 

 

Major Sweeney was actually involved in both of the missions involving the use of atomic weapons on Japan. For the first bomb that was dropped by Colonel Paul Tibbets and the Enola Gay airplane on Hiroshima on August 6, Sweeney was flying one of the airplanes that was supporting Tibbets during the mission. Three days later, Sweeney was piloting the Bockscar airplane that was the one carrying the atomic weapon used on the city of Nagasaki.