Mystery of lost US nuclear bomb

[IndianaGreen]

Mystery of lost US nuclear bomb

Monday, 10 November 2008
By Gordon Corera
BBC News security correspondent, northern Greenland

The United States abandoned a nuclear weapon beneath the ice in northern Greenland following a crash in 1968, a BBC investigation has found.

<snip>

A declassified US government video, obtained by the BBC, documents the clear-up and gives some ideas of the scale of the operation.

The high explosives surrounding the four nuclear weapons had detonated but without setting off the actual nuclear devices, which had not been armed by the crew.

The Pentagon maintained that all four weapons had been "destroyed".

This may be technically true, since the bombs were no longer complete, but declassified documents obtained by the BBC under the US Freedom of Information Act, parts of which remain classified, reveal a much darker story, which has been confirmed by individuals involved in the clear-up and those who have had access to details since.

The documents make clear that within weeks of the incident, investigators piecing together the fragments realised that only three of the weapons could be accounted for.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7720049.stm

[cliffordu]

1. Oops.

[Billy Burnett]

2. Another alarming sentence from the article

(Bold: mine)

By April, a decision had been taken to send a Star III submarine to the base to look for the lost bomb, which had the serial number 78252. (A similar submarine search off the coast of Spain two years earlier had led to another weapon being recovered.)

Jeezuz. How many of these things are "lost"?

[IndianaGreen]

3. There is that missing H-bomb right off Savannah, Georgia.

it was never found. I saw a documentary about it on TV recently.

For 50 Years, Nuclear Bomb Lost in Watery Grave

February 3, 2008 · On Feb. 5, 1958, a B-47 bomber dropped a 7,000-pound nuclear bomb into the waters off Tybee Island, Ga., after it collided with another Air Force jet.

Fifty years later, the bomb — which has unknown quantities of radioactive material — has never been found. And while the Air Force says the bomb, if left undisturbed, poses no threat to the area, determined bomb hunters and area residents aren't so sure.

The bomb found its hidden resting place when the B-47 pilot, Air Force Col. Howard Richardson, dropped it into the water after an F-86 fighter jet accidentally collided with him during a training mission. The fighter jet's pilot, Lt. Clarence Stewart, didn't see Richardson's plane on his radar; Stewart descended directly onto Richardson's aircraft. The impact ripped the left wing off the F-86 and heavily damaged the fuel tanks of the B-47.

Richardson, carrying a two-man crew, was afraid the bomb would break loose from his damaged plane when he landed, so he ditched the bomb in the water before landing the plane at Hunter Air Force Base outside Savannah. Stewart ejected and eventually landed safely in a swamp.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18587608

[Confusious]

4. These things use tritium,

an unstable isotope of hydrogen, which needs to be replenished every few years. I'm sure the explosives also have degraded, so even if one piece of it exploded, it would be more of a poof instead of bang. I'm not sure it would it would even penetrate the casing. They probably also have lead or gold to protect from radiation, which does not corrode.

one of these nuclear weapons going off = lightning strike

[DUlover2909]

8. Not necessarily, but maybe. The plutonium however has not degraded.

If the casing leaked water to the plutonium then the water would oxidize the plutonium and release poisonous radioactive plutonium oxide. Lead does corrode, but they don't shield plutonium warheads with it. Plutonium doesn't emit gamma radiation so shielding isn't necessary. The seal is the most important thing to consider.

All of that aside, the most important danger is that someone could recover the plutonium and retool the warhead. The plutonium lasts 25,000 years.

[peacetalksforall]

5. What the hxxx is a nuclear bomb doing on a training mission?

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

6. The Air Force dropped a nuke on South Carolina in 1958

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Bluff

A B-47 navigator was trying to troubleshoot a warning light when he mistakenly pulled the emergency release pin, dropping the device onto the bomb bay doors, which were pushed open by the bomb's weight. Fortunately the fissionable core was stored elsewhere on the plane, but the high explosive still created a hell of a crater, destroyed a house and injured several people.

This had to be the biggest "Oh, shit!" ever. First, the navigator as he watched the bomb -- and his career -- plummet, and secondly the pilot, who had to know what happened by the way the plane reacted to the sudden absence of the bomb's weight.

[IndianaGreen]

7. Oh shit!

It's a wonder that SAC hasn't started an accidental nuclear war by nuking a US city by accident and having the idiots in Washington think it was a Soviet sneak attack.

[DUlover2909]

9. They would be able to tell where the warhead came from by looking at the chemical signature

in the ash and fallout. Every warhead has a fingerprint in the isotope composition that points to the exact date and location of production.