5. NEAR MISSES
Since The Manhattan Project began, scientists, engineers, and military personnel have been handling radioactive metals and high explosives, in research and development, and during manufacture, assembly, transport, deployment, and storage of these most dangerous materials and their products. Even before the first bombs were built, accidental radiation exposures were part of the business, and since bombs became more numerous, and were deployed in more locations around the world, accidents have been happening. So far, there has not been a full scale accidental detonation within the US nuclear arsenal, but can we be certain our luck will hold forever?
Here are just a few of the incidents reported to atomic energy authorities:
- 1956, a B-47 landing at Lakenheath Air Base, Britain, crashed into a storage hut full of atomic bombs, scattering them across the field. 4 crewmen died in the crash and fire, but none of the bombs exploded.
- 1958, a B-47 accidentally dropped an H-bomb at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The high explosives detonated, but the nuclear core did not.
- 1962, a B-52 carrying 2 H-bombs crashed at Goldsboro, North Carolina. 3 of the 8 crewmen were killed, one of the bombs came very close to exploding, and one of them is still there, buried deep in the mud, its nuclear core intact.
- 1966, a B-52 collided with a KC-135 tanker while refueling over Palomares, Spain. Both airplanes crashed, 7 crewmen were killed, and 4 H-bombs fell, one into the Mediterranean Sea, and 3 on land, 2 of which detonated their non-nuclear explosives.
- 1968, a B-52 carrying 4 H-bombs crashed into the sea ice off Thule Air Base, Greenland, killing one crewman, detonating the conventional explosives of all 4 bombs, and dispersing the nuclear core material.
- 1980, at Damascus, Arkansas, a multiple warhead ICBM exploded in its silo. The nuclear material did not detonate, but there was a release of radioactive fallout.
- 1995, Russian radar mistook a Norwegian weather rocket for a US ICBM, and an alert was sounded. A full scale launch of Russian ICBMs toward US targets was cancelled by Russian President Boris Yeltsin with minutes to spare.
- 2007, a B-52 was accidentally loaded with 6 nuclear missiles at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, flown to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana, and left parked there unguarded for 36 hours, until somebody noticed.
Have all such incidents been publically disclosed or were some kept secret? And what about Russian nuclear weapons? We really don’t know. The bombs and warheads are all aging, as are planes, missiles, submarines, and associated infrastructures. The dangers of accidental or unauthorized launches and detonations, combined with the chances of bombs and/or bomb making materials being hijacked by terrorists, is increasing daily. Isn’t it time to dismantle them all?
next: what can we do? >
Since The Manhattan Project began, scientists, engineers, and military personnel have been handling radioactive metals and high explosives, in research and development, and during manufacture, assembly, transport, deployment, and storage of these most dangerous materials and their products. Even before the first bombs were built, accidental radiation exposures were part of the business, and since bombs became more numerous, and were deployed in more locations around the world, accidents have been happening. So far, there has not been a full scale accidental detonation within the US nuclear arsenal, but can we be certain our luck will hold forever?
Here are just a few of the incidents reported to atomic energy authorities:
- 1956, a B-47 landing at Lakenheath Air Base, Britain, crashed into a storage hut full of atomic bombs, scattering them across the field. 4 crewmen died in the crash and fire, but none of the bombs exploded.
- 1958, a B-47 accidentally dropped an H-bomb at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The high explosives detonated, but the nuclear core did not.
- 1962, a B-52 carrying 2 H-bombs crashed at Goldsboro, North Carolina. 3 of the 8 crewmen were killed, one of the bombs came very close to exploding, and one of them is still there, buried deep in the mud, its nuclear core intact.
- 1966, a B-52 collided with a KC-135 tanker while refueling over Palomares, Spain. Both airplanes crashed, 7 crewmen were killed, and 4 H-bombs fell, one into the Mediterranean Sea, and 3 on land, 2 of which detonated their non-nuclear explosives.
- 1968, a B-52 carrying 4 H-bombs crashed into the sea ice off Thule Air Base, Greenland, killing one crewman, detonating the conventional explosives of all 4 bombs, and dispersing the nuclear core material.
- 1980, at Damascus, Arkansas, a multiple warhead ICBM exploded in its silo. The nuclear material did not detonate, but there was a release of radioactive fallout.
- 1995, Russian radar mistook a Norwegian weather rocket for a US ICBM, and an alert was sounded. A full scale launch of Russian ICBMs toward US targets was cancelled by Russian President Boris Yeltsin with minutes to spare.
- 2007, a B-52 was accidentally loaded with 6 nuclear missiles at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, flown to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana, and left parked there unguarded for 36 hours, until somebody noticed.
Have all such incidents been publically disclosed or were some kept secret? And what about Russian nuclear weapons? We really don’t know. The bombs and warheads are all aging, as are planes, missiles, submarines, and associated infrastructures. The dangers of accidental or unauthorized launches and detonations, combined with the chances of bombs and/or bomb making materials being hijacked by terrorists, is increasing daily. Isn’t it time to dismantle them all?
next: what can we do? >
