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American Nuclear Mishaps; Plus Other Countries!
Topic Started: Nov 24 2012, 02:03 AM (119 Views)
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Nightmare on Nuke Street

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The Department of Defense has released narrative summaries for 32 accidents involving nuclear weapons between 1950 and 1980, many of which involve aircraft bearing bombs. False alarms? Please. The Department of Defense admitted 1,152 "moderately serious" false alarms between 1977 and 1984 -- roughly three a week. (I love the phrase "moderately serious." I wonder how many "seriously serious" false alarms they had?) I kind of get the feeling that if NORAD went more than a week without a serious false alarm, they would start to wonder if the computers were ok.


My personal favourites are:

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The USS Belknap incident was also pretty terrifying: a U.S. Navy cruiser in 1975 collided with an aircraft carrier and caught fire, nearly engulfing the stockpile of nuclear weapons on board.


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I almost went with the 1965 incident, when an A-4E Skyhawk rolled off the USS Ticonderoga carrying a 1 megaton thermonuclear weapon, but aircraft accidents are going to be overrepresented here. (And besides, the Navy merely lost the nuclear weapon to Davy Jones's Locker. That's happened a couple of times.)


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B-52s armed with nuclear weapons crashed in 1962 (Goldsboro, North Carolina), 1966 (Palomares, Spain), and 1968 (Thule, Greenland). After the third crash, the Air Force finally figured out that it's a terrible idea to keep nuclear armed bombers in the air at all times. Hey, once is an accident and twice is a coincidence, but three times? That's a trend!


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I have high standards for aircraft-related mishaps, but the 1958 incident at Mars Bluff is a doozy. (What's with 1958, huh?) The B-47 crew had failed to secure the bomb in the bay and, while attempting to replace a "locking pin" in flight, accidentally tripped the bomb release. The bomb landed in a residential area in the unincorporated hamlet of Mars Bluff near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina -- and exploded. Fortunately, only the high explosives detonated. But the impact crater can still be seen today. "Not too many people can say they've had a nuclear bomb dropped on them," Walter Gregg, the man who lost his house to the accident, told a local newspaper. "Not too many would want to." Gee, you think?


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Still worse is the 1956 bomber crash at Lakenheath Air Base in Britain. This what  General Curtis LeMay, head of Strategic Air Command (SAC), cabled back home:

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HAVE JUST COME FROM WRECKAGE OF B-47 WHICH PLOUGHED INTO AN IGLOO IN LAKENHEATH .... THE B-47 TORE APART THE IGLOO AND KNOCKED ABOUT 3 MARK SIXES. A/C THEN EXPLODED SHOWERING BURNING FUEL OVER ALL. CREW PERISHED. MOST OF A/C WRECKAGE PIVOTED ON IGLOO AND CAME TO REST WITH A/C NOSE JUST BEYOND IGLOO BANK WHICH KEPT MAIN FUEL FIRE OUTSIDE SMASHED IGLOO. PRELIMINARY EXAM BY BOMB DISPOSAL OFFICER SAYS A MIRACLE THAT ONE MARK SIX WITH EXPOSED DETONATORS DIDN'T GO.


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September: This is another month with several big scares. There's the 1980 event in Damascus, Arkansas, when a worker accidentally dropped a wrench into an ICBM silo, puncturing a Titan II missile. It eventually exploded, blasting a 750-ton silo door a quarter of a mile away and launching the nuclear warhead into the air. (No worries, it was recovered.)
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Charles Cerebella
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Lakenheath is about 30 miles from my home town :S

It is rather lucky that nuclear warheads don't explode on impact or in ordinary explosions otherwise we wouldn't have much of the world left!
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Charles Cerebella
Nov 24 2012, 08:32 AM
Lakenheath is about 30 miles from my home town :S

It is rather lucky that nuclear warheads don't explode on impact or in ordinary explosions otherwise we wouldn't have much of the world left!
If it's the design of warhead I'm thinking of it has symmetrical charges placed all around a fissile core of uranium of plutonium. If the charges don't all go off with equal force at the same time the fissile won't compress right and won't sustain enough run away fission to explode.
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by Night
Nov 24 2012, 02:03 PM
Charles Cerebella
Nov 24 2012, 08:32 AM
Lakenheath is about 30 miles from my home town :S

It is rather lucky that nuclear warheads don't explode on impact or in ordinary explosions otherwise we wouldn't have much of the world left!
If it's the design of warhead I'm thinking of it has symmetrical charges placed all around a fissile core of uranium of plutonium. If the charges don't all go off with equal force at the same time the fissile won't compress right and won't sustain enough run away fission to explode.
That was the original design for fission nuclear weapons, I'm not sure if it's the same for ones that use the more powerful fusion type.
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♥ All You Need is Love ♥
Her Nordic Majesty

NES ~ I find you so irresistible | Bestias ~ You are a goddess
Salaxalans ~ RACH FOR NS QUEEN | Cpt Carrot ~ Can you get any more awesome? <3| It's always easy to be cheerful around you <3
Calvin Coolidge ~ Rach for NS Queen! \o/
Trinn ~ You're already super sexy and that can't really be outdone
Helle ~ EVERYONE wants to be like you <3 | Guys wanna be with you, and girls wanna be you :3
Praetor ~ Who needs 1500 WA nations when you have Solorni
Ninn ~ hi i just wanted to say that you are a literal goddess
Bran ~ Who doesn't want to be with Rach? She's fun, funny, an absolute delight and she has mountains of love to give to a cruel world. | Every inch of you is perfect <3
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Rach
Nov 24 2012, 06:09 PM
by Night
Nov 24 2012, 02:03 PM
Charles Cerebella
Nov 24 2012, 08:32 AM
Lakenheath is about 30 miles from my home town :S

It is rather lucky that nuclear warheads don't explode on impact or in ordinary explosions otherwise we wouldn't have much of the world left!
If it's the design of warhead I'm thinking of it has symmetrical charges placed all around a fissile core of uranium of plutonium. If the charges don't all go off with equal force at the same time the fissile won't compress right and won't sustain enough run away fission to explode.
That was the original design for fission nuclear weapons, I'm not sure if it's the same for ones that use the more powerful fusion type.
Fusion warheads use a fission warhead to compress and irradiate heavier isotopes of hydrogen to cause them to fuse.
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makes me feel safe when I read about this, good to know its competent crew.
and who needed the soviets to fear nuclear ragnarok when you have accidents like that, that was enough to keep the blood pumping.
and when you read stuf like this
---> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak <-------
then you reallt start to wonder if Skynet is behind this all and is failing time after time

"If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention..!"
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Holy crap, that is really scary Mr. Riket!
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♥ All You Need is Love ♥
Her Nordic Majesty

NES ~ I find you so irresistible | Bestias ~ You are a goddess
Salaxalans ~ RACH FOR NS QUEEN | Cpt Carrot ~ Can you get any more awesome? <3| It's always easy to be cheerful around you <3
Calvin Coolidge ~ Rach for NS Queen! \o/
Trinn ~ You're already super sexy and that can't really be outdone
Helle ~ EVERYONE wants to be like you <3 | Guys wanna be with you, and girls wanna be you :3
Praetor ~ Who needs 1500 WA nations when you have Solorni
Ninn ~ hi i just wanted to say that you are a literal goddess
Bran ~ Who doesn't want to be with Rach? She's fun, funny, an absolute delight and she has mountains of love to give to a cruel world. | Every inch of you is perfect <3
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