William 'Deak' Parsons decided it was safer to loading the gunpowder and detonator charges into Little Boy in the air. After witnessing several B-29s crash on takeoff, ordnance expert Capt. If the Enola Gay crashed on takeoff and Little Boy was already armed, the explosion could very well trigger Little Boy to detonate. The Little Boy bomb weighed a massive 9,700 pounds. Overloaded by gasoline and bombs, the planes would be too heavy to get airborne before the runway ended. It was not uncommon for B-29s to crash on takeoff from the airfield at Tinian Island during World War II.
