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List of Nuclear Close Calls
- TheCodex 7y agoForgot this one. "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.[10] He also said the yield of each bomb was more than 250 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb, large enough to create a 100% kill zone within a radius of 8.5 miles (13.7 km).[14]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash
- ortusdux 7y agoIIRC, those devices had 4 safety mechanisms in place, and 3 failed in this situation.
- dfsegoat 7y agoYeah. It literally says right below that portion you pasted that several authors dispute that claim based on declassified reports of the recovered weapon: They point out that: - "the arm-ready switch was in the safe position, the high-voltage battery was not activated (which would preclude the charging of the firing circuit and neutron generator necessary for detonation)" - "the Rotary Safing Switch was destroyed, preventing energisation of the X-Unit (which controlled the firing capacitors)" - "The tritium reservoir used for fusion boosting was also full and had not been injected into the weapon primary. This would have resulted in a significantly reduced primary yield and would not have ignited the weapon's fusion secondary stage" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash#Later_analysis_of_weapons_recovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash#Late...