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A U.S. Bomber Crashed on Greenland with 4 Nukes aboard in 1968
- pelagicdev 9y agoOr that time a U.S. Bomber crashed on U.S. soil (North Carolina) with 2 nukes on board during a training mission; one of which was armed! Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash
- mrep 9y agoEven if it was armed, it would be unlikely to go off. Here is a quote from a missile silo accident: https://www.armytimes.com/news/2017/11/04/details-of-south-dakota-nuclear-missile-accident-released/ https://www.armytimes.com/news/2017/11/04/details-of-south-d... "Incredible as it may sound to a civilian, Hicks said he spent no time worrying about the thermonuclear warhead. He had been convinced by his training that it was nearly impossible to detonate a warhead accidentally. Among other things, he said, the warhead had to receive codes from the launch-control officers, had to reach a certain altitude, and had to detect a certain amount of acceleration and G-force. There were so many safeguards built in, Hicks later joked, that a warhead might have been lucky to detonate even when it was supposed to."
- totalZero 9y agoSome folks who knew more than you and I seemed to think there was potential for a nuclear disaster. > In 2011, Lt. Jack Revelle, the bomb disposal expert responsible for disarming the device, claimed "we came damn close" to a nuclear detonation that would have completely changed much of eastern North Carolina > In a now-declassified 1969 report, entitled "Goldsboro Revisited", written by Parker F. Jones, a supervisor of nuclear safety at Sandia National Laboratories, Jones said that "one simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe", and concluded that "The MK 39 Mod 2 bomb did not possess adequate safety for the airborne alert role in the B-52".
- totalZero 9y ago> Three of the four arming mechanisms on one of the bombs activated, causing it to execute many of the steps needed to arm itself, such as charging the firing capacitors and, critically, deployment of a 100-foot-diameter (30 m) retard parachute. The parachute allowed that bomb to hit the ground with little damage. Damn.
- CapitalistCartr 9y agoAs I've mentioned before, we dropped nukes all over the place until we changed our policy about 1970, after dropping four nukes on Franco's Spain. We did a lot of crazy things during the Cold War. These stories seem eternally popular on HN.
- skj 9y agoSounds legit.
- skj 9y agoTo be clear, "dropped" is different than "lost". When someone describes dropping a bomb they're describing an intentional explosion.
- CapitalistCartr 9y agoNope, I mean dropped as in the first definition, as in fell out of the airplane, plummeting pell-mell towards the Earth
- skj 9y agoYou can use it however you want to, I'm just telling you how people will understand it.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Stratoscope 9y agoWhen people read about "dropping four nukes on Franco's Spain" they will think it means deliberately dropping four nukes with the intent of exploding them. You may have had a different meaning of "dropped four nukes" in mind, but when the common everyday meaning of a phrase is one thing, and you mean a different thing, it helps everyone if you can be clear and specific about what you're actually referring to.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- melling 9y agoAnd Bayes Rule was used to find one of the bombs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash#Weapons_recovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash#Weap... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_search_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_search_theory