4 Megaton nuke near miss over North Carolina in 1961

[bitchstewie]

Not sure how accurate this account is but fuuuuuuuu.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24183879

[The Hypno-Toad]

Very close. I would imagine there will be few more of these incidents coming to light as we get further away from the Cold War.

Makes you wonder how many close calls the Russians had....

[MartG]

There's still one they lost off the coast of Georgia that they never recovered

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid...

[hedgefinder]

MartG said:

There's still one they lost off the coast of Georgia that they never recovered

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid...

pretty sure there are more than just that lost or lying unrecovered..
there is a website somewhere that lists all the lost nukes and accidents involving nuclear warheads over history and its quite alarming how many there have actually been..

[Hooli]

I agree with the other poster that many more of these stories will come out, it's scary how close they got to accidental explosions etc at times.

[Tango13]

This is the book mentioned in the link, i've read some of the authors other work and he does write a good book.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Command-and-Control-ebook/...

What was the quote by the Americam President along the lines of?

'I'm not sure what worries me most, the fact that the Air Force lose nuclear weapons or that they lose enough of them to need a codeword for losing them'

[rhinochopig]

Hooli said:

I agree with the other poster that many more of these stories will come out, it's scary how close they got to accidental explosions etc at times.

They've had dozens and dozens of accidents...

There's a nice summary here. http://www.lutins.org/nukes.html

[Mojocvh]

bhstewie said:

Not sure how accurate this account is but fuuuuuuuu.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24183879

I'll look out an more accurate report later, this is load of sensationalist coswallop to sell a book!

Edited by Mojocvh on Sunday 22 September 16:43

[ecain63]

Non-story. Takes a damned sight more than being dropped to detonate one of these things. Very low risk of anything being affected by something like this. Unless it hit your house or landed on your head. That might sting.

[dudleybloke]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eFHJdAzBFA&li...

nuclear 911 - documentary about nuclear weapons accidents.

[The Hypno-Toad]

Thinking about this a bit more, with the timing of JFKs inauguration, if that bomb had gone off, I think the chances of it been far worse than Cuba were fairly high.

If you were the President how long would you wait until it could be totally confirmed it was one of yours? Because if you got it wrong and it was one of the Russians and you wait that bit too long, it would be goodnight Vienna.

[nellyleelephant]

ecain63 said:

Non-story. Takes a damned sight more than being dropped to detonate one of these things. Very low risk of anything being affected by something like this. Unless it hit your house or landed on your head. That might sting.

I take it you didn't read the article? Assuming it is accurate (assuming!) the detonation process had begun.

[Mojocvh]

nellyleelephant said:

ecain63 said:

Non-story. Takes a damned sight more than being dropped to detonate one of these things. Very low risk of anything being affected by something like this. Unless it hit your house or landed on your head. That might sting.

I take it you didn't read the article? Assuming it is accurate (assuming!) the detonation process had begun.

No it hadn't and couldn't as the high voltage needed to trigger the X-ray generator at the heart of the fusion device still had two safety breaks in place.

But that doesn't sell books does it?

[nellyleelephant]

Mojocvh said:

No it hadn't and couldn't as the high voltage needed to trigger the X-ray generator at the heart of the fusion device still had two safety breaks in place.

But that doesn't sell books does it?

I suppose you have to take most of these things with a pinch of salt! (not totally green to all this, spent 15 years in defence, 5 of them at LM missiles and fire control....should have known better)

[tdm34]

bhstewie said:

Not sure how accurate this account is but fuuuuuuuu.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24183879

My old man was a Canberra pilot at Laarbruch in 1961, he flew BI8 specials, with the gunpack removed with a Nuke hoisted
into the bomb bay, his squadrons task was first strike low level to Russia, one evening me and him were having a bit of a chat about
that time he casually let slip that in the 14 months he was stationed there they went to "failsafe" 21 times..........

It sure makes you think, doesn't it. scary stuff!!!!

[Mike Random]

I understand whilst in Greenland near Thule airbase that they also dropped one through the ice during the cold war that (obviously) never detonated.

More of these incidents will come out for sure.

Mike

[northwest monkey]

MartG said:

There's still one they lost off the coast of Georgia that they never recovered

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid...

I'm pretty sure there was a documentary about that & some bloke trying to find it to hand back to the US Army. The bloke who did the programme was worried that TERRORISTS and maybe MUSLIM TERRORISTS in particular might find it. There was lots of CGI to show what would happen if a TERRORIST found the bomb & detonated it in a variety of places.

Needless to say, they didn't find it so unlike me, use the hour it lasted to do something worthwhile.

[Tango13]

There was one B-36 pilot who managed to accidentally drop not one but two multi megaton nukes. After the first one the AEC inspector turned up, located the weapon, organised the clean up etc.

A few years later the same pilot managed to mislay a second nuke, the same AEC inspector turned up, recognised the pilot and his first words were 'oh fk, not you again!'

[Mojocvh]

Mojocvh said:

bhstewie said:

Not sure how accurate this account is but fuuuuuuuu.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24183879

I'll look out an more accurate report later, this is load of sensationalist coswallop to sell a book!

Edited by Mojocvh on Sunday 22 September 16:43

here ya go..

http://nuclearweaponsaccidents.blogspot.co.uk/

I have also witnessed a British nuclear "accident" when they# dropped an transport "trolley" of the side of a hercs ramp!!

watching it all unfold from the otherside of the airfield, made all us lunchtime netball players go oh fuuuuuuu as well.

they# being those very officious RAF Police. Bless.

[Podie]

article said:

Correction 23 September: An earlier version of this story described the bomb that nearly exploded in North Carolina as having a four-megaton payload. It was in fact 24-megaton.