Presumably, about 50 nuclear warheads were lost during the Cold War, and not all of them remained lying in deserted areas.
The US Department of Defense first published a list of nuclear weapons accidents back in 1968, which listed 13 serious nuclear weapons accidents between 1950 and 1968. An updated list was released in 1980 with 32 cases. At the same time, the same documents were issued by the Navy under the Freedom of Information Act, which listed 381 incidents with nuclear weapons in the US between 1965 and 1977.
In January 1966, an American B-52 bomber and a KC-135 refueling aircraft collided over the Spanish village of Palomares during mid-air refueling at an altitude of 9000 meters. The planes instantly turned into one giant flaming ball, and meanwhile, on board the B-52 were four hydrogen bombs. For some unknown reason, one of them fell unharmed into a field near the village. The non-nuclear fuses of two more detonated, and fragments of the bomb, along with plutonium dust, made a small radioactive rain at the site of impact. The fourth fell not far from the coast, but where exactly? It is worth noting that the power of this lost bomb is 1000 times greater than the power of the one that razed Hiroshima to the ground.
They say that after this incident, the surroundings of Palomares for a long time resembled the scenery for a film about the Apocalypse. The location of the bombs was calculated using Geiger counters, the coastline was surrounded by American warships.
Let's read about this case and others in more detail ...
January 17, 1966, 9:30 am. From the NATO air base near Seville takes off "air tanker" KC-135A "Stratotanker" (serial number 61-0273, 97th bomber wing, ship commander Major Emil Chapla) with 110 tons of kerosene on board. A regular flight and routine refueling of another US Air Force strategic bomber, one of those that patrolled the southern borders of the airspace of the Warsaw Pact countries around the clock, is ahead.
10:05 am. US Air Force B-52G Stratofortress strategic bomber (serial number 58‑0256, 68th bomber wing, ship commander Captain Charles Wendorf) with four 1.5-megaton B28 hydrogen bombs on board makes a U-turn over the Mediterranean Sea and takes a course back to their base in the US after a 12-hour watch. Approximately 5 minutes remain until the meeting with the refueling tanker traveling 32 kilometers at an altitude of 9300 meters at a speed of 600 km / h.
10:11 am. 8 kilometers from the coast of Spain, the B-52 is on the final maneuver to rendezvous with the KS-135. Major Emila Chapla, commander of KS-135, switches the refueling hose toggle switch to the “release” position and at that moment discovers that the approach is happening too quickly. She presses the microphone button to alert the B-52 crew, but only manages to speak the first words. A moment later, the B-52 rams the K-135 with a strong blow to the lower part of the fuselage, and both aircraft are engulfed in flames.
10:22 am. The fire that followed on board the B-52 immediately after the collision and explosive depressurization forced the crew to activate the emergency release mechanism for nuclear bombs. Following this, the commander gives the order to eject - four of the seven crew members manage to complete it. A second later, the eight-engine "flying fortress" explodes in the air. The wreckage of both planes, which fell apart into thousands of pieces, later had to be collected over an area of almost 40 square kilometers. They say that their individual fragments are still being found ...
Theoretically, in the event of an emergency release of nuclear bombs, each of them descends to the ground on a double-dome parachute ... But this is only theoretically.
Francisco Simo Orts, a 40-year-old fisherman from the village of Palomares, where the entire population of the district barely reached one and a half thousand people, was just fishing on his boat a few kilometers from the coast, when a fireball bloomed and went out in the sky above him. After some time, a large blue metal cylinder, descending from above on two parachutes, fell into the water a hundred meters from his fishing boat, raising a huge sheaf of spray, and immediately drowned. Francisco, interested in such an unusual natural phenomenon, passed several times on his schooner over the crash site, but did not find anything suspicious and, returning home, told his friends about the incident. They decided to contact the police, but they only shrugged their shoulders - the authorities chose not to inform the local police about Operation Broken Arrow. The bomb, which was observed by a Spanish fisherman, was searched for by 18 US Navy ships and 3,800 troops at the bottom of the sea for almost three months.
Less than a day later, the God-forgotten Spanish village turned into the most important strategic object of NATO. The ten-kilometer zone around it was immediately cordoned off - it was impossible to enter or exit without a special pass. Three hundred military engineers and emergency experts with Geiger counters at the ready, to the great displeasure of local residents, trampled the surrounding fields, destroying the crop of tomatoes and beans with army boots. Within three days, three hundred more seekers joined them, and then, on January 20, the US Air Force Strategic Command gave birth to a dry commentary, recognizing the presence on the fallen B-52 of only ONE nuclear bomb, which allegedly fell into the sea. There was no danger to the population, according to this communiqué.
The communiqué did not state that, at the same time as the first bomb fell into the Mediterranean, a second one landed on its parachute in the half-dried bed of the Almansora River. And even more so, there was not a word about the fact that minutes earlier, the two remaining nuclear bombs, whose parachutes did not open for unknown reasons, crashed into the ground at a speed of more than 300 km / h: one in a hilly area one and a half kilometers west of the village (“Zone 2″), the second is next to the house of one of the local residents on the eastern outskirts of Palomares (“Zone 3″). If the impact had set off the electric fuse of the warhead, ensuring the simultaneous detonation of the TNT bombs surrounding it, the total explosion power would have been approximately 1,250 bombs dropped on Hiroshima. However, TNT detonated on its own, without an electric fuse, and, as a result, unevenly: as a result, instead of compressing the plutonium filling of the bomb to a critical mass, it “only” threw it into the atmosphere in a dense cloud of dust of monstrous radioactivity.
According to official data, as a result of the incident, about 230 hectares of soil were subjected to radioactive contamination of varying degrees of intensity, some of which was used for arable land. No civilian casualties were recorded. Despite the timely work carried out to decontaminate the soil and buildings, radiation monitoring in this area is still being carried out. The heavily contaminated impact sites 2 and 3 (“impact point” in the diagram), with a total area of more than 2 hectares, have been declared quarantine and visiting them is not recommended.
Due to the design features of the emergency bomb release, they had to descend to the ground by parachute. But in this case, the parachute opened only at one bomb.
The first bomb whose parachute did not open fell into the Mediterranean Sea. Searched for her then three months. Another bomb, in which the parachute opened, descended into the bed of the Almansora River, not far from the coast. But the greatest danger was represented by two bombs, which crashed to the ground at a speed of more than 300 kilometers per hour. One of them is next to the house of a resident of the village of Palomares.
A day later, three lost bombs were found on the coast; the initiating charge of two of them worked from hitting the ground. Fortunately, opposite volumes of TNT exploded out of sync, and instead of compressing the detonation radioactive mass, they scattered it around. The search for the fourth unfolded on the territory of 70 square meters. km. After a month and a half of hard work, tons of debris were recovered from under the water, but there was no bomb among them.
Thanks to the fishermen who witnessed the tragedy, on March 15, the place where the ill-fated cargo fell was found. The bomb was found at a depth of 777 m, above a steep bottom crevice. At the cost of superhuman efforts, after several slips and cable breaks, on April 7 the bomb was raised. She lay at the bottom for 79 days 22 hours 23 minutes. After another 1 hour and 29 minutes, specialists neutralized it. It was the most expensive salvage operation at sea in the 20th century, costing $84 million.
Satisfied generals next to the hydrogen bomb, which was taken from the bottom of the sea 3 months later.
This bomb, having fallen in Palomares, miraculously did not explode. But it could be otherwise...
If the strike had set off the fuse of the bombs, the coast of Spain, so beloved by tourists now, would be a disfigured radioactive field. The total power of the explosion would have been more than 1000 Hiroshima. But fortunately, the fuse did not work. There was an explosion of TNT inside one of the bombs, which, apart from the fuse, did not lead to a detonation and an explosion of the plutonium filling.
The result of the explosion was the release of a cloud of radioactive dust into the atmosphere.
The first Spanish military at the crash site.
The crash site of the B-52. Funnel formed 30 x 10 x 3 m
After the plane crash over Palomares, the United States announced that it would stop bombers flying over Spain with nuclear weapons on board. A few days later, the Spanish government established a formal ban on such flights.
The United States cleared the contaminated area and granted 536 compensation claims, paying $711,000.
Barrels of harvested soil are being prepared for shipment to the United States for processing.
Participants in the radioactive cleanup from the US Army.
Map of radioactive contamination of the soil in the Palomares region and the location of the recording equipment.
That same year, a Spanish official, Manuel Fraga Iribarne, center, and the American ambassador, Angier Biddle Duke, left, sailed the sea to demonstrate the safety of the sea.
Another $14,500 was paid to a fisherman who watched the bomb fall into the sea.
In Palomares itself, decades later, nothing reminds of what happened, except for the street "January 17, 1966".
The site where one of the bombs fell.
In the fall of 2006, Spain and the United States signed an agreement to clean up the area near the village of Palomares, located on the coast of the province of Almeria in Andalusia, from the remnants of plutonium-239 that fell into the area as a result of the disaster of an American bomber with atomic bombs on board on January 17, 1966.
"The governments of the two countries have agreed to carry out joint work to clean up 10 hectares of soil near the village of Palomares, which continues to be contaminated with plutonium residues," National Radio of Spain reported on October 8, citing unnamed "competent sources."
In a more than strange message, neither the date of the signing of the agreement, nor the persons who signed it, nor the date for the start of work, nor the amount allocated for these purposes were indicated. It was only said that "the costs of the parties will be divided in half."
Immediately after the disaster, the US military carried out cleanup work that cost $80 million. Note that 40 years ago this amount was much more significant than in our time. The then Minister of Information and Tourism, Manuel Fraga, personally swam in the Mediterranean Sea for propaganda purposes, wanting to show the whole world that there is no danger and there is no reason for tourists to avoid Spain.
Measurements made in recent years in the affected area show that in the Palomares area, the level of radiation, which significantly exceeds the permissible level, continues to persist.
Since the mid-80s, residential construction has been prohibited in the Palomares zone. The state bought dozens of hectares of land from private owners, where any economic activity is prohibited.
Information about the radioactive situation and the state of health of the local population is extremely rare in the press.
To some extent, the Palomares incident inspired the anti-war comedy The Day the Fish Came Out.
Of course, these are not the first and not the last Bombs lost and miraculously not exploded.
In the air
On a US Air Force B-36 bomber with a nuclear weapon on board, while flying from Alaska to an air base in Texas at an altitude of 2400 meters, one of the engines caught fire due to severe icing.
The crew dropped an atomic bomb into the ocean and then parachuted out of the plane (The Defense Monitor, 1981).
On the B-50 bomber, (development of the B-29) carrying the Mark-4 atomic bomb, an engine malfunction occurred.
The bomb was dropped from a height of 3200 meters and hit the river. As a result of the detonation of the explosive charge and the destruction of the warhead, the river was contaminated with almost 45 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (The Defense Monitor, 1981).
Unbeknownst to Moroccan officials, a nuclear-armed B-47 crashed and caught fire on the runway of a US Air Force base 90 miles northeast of Rabat. The Air Force accepted the evacuation of the base.
The bomber will continue to burn for 7 hours. A large number of cars and planes were contaminated with radiation. (The Defense Monitor, 1981).
US B-47 bomber with two nuclear bombs on board disappeared during the flight. He flew non-stop from the US Air Force Base in Florida to an unknown overseas base.
Two aerial refuelings were scheduled. The first was successful, but the bomber never made contact with the second refueling aircraft, as planned, over the Mediterranean. Despite a thorough and extensive search operation, no trace of the aircraft, nuclear weapons or crew was found (The Defense Monitor, 1981).
A B-47 bomber with a hydrogen bomb on board collided in the air with a fighter. At the same time, the wing of the bomber was damaged, which led to the displacement of one of the engines. A bomber pilot, after three unsuccessful attempts to land with a nuclear weapon, dropped a hydrogen bomb in shallow water at the mouth of the Savannah River.
For five weeks, the US Air Force searched unsuccessfully for the bomb. The search was abandoned after another hydrogen bomb was accidentally dropped from a bomber in South Carolina on March 11, 1958, with more serious consequences. Then the first of the two bombs began to be considered as irretrievably lost. According to experts from the US Department of Defense, it currently rests on the bottom of the sea under a 6-meter water column, submerged in the sand by 5 meters. Its search and extraction, according to experts, requires about five years and 23 million dollars (Clair, 2001; The Australian, 2001).
During takeoff, an engine failure occurred on a US Air Force B-47 aircraft. To save him, two fuel tanks located at the ends of the wings were dropped from a height of 2500 meters. One of them exploded at a distance of 20 meters from another aircraft of the same type parked in the parking lot, which had three nuclear charges on board. The ensuing fire, which lasted approximately 16 hours, caused at least one explosive charge to detonate, destroy the bomber, kill two people and injure eight others. The fire and explosion resulted in the release of plutonium and highly enriched uranium. However, the US Air Force and the British Ministry of Defense never admitted that nuclear weapons were present in this incident. Although two scientists discovered significant nuclear contamination near the airbase as early as 1960, their secret report was not made public until 1996 (Shaun, 1990; Broken Arrow, 1996; Hansen, 2001).
A B-47 bomber, while flying from an air base in Georgia to a foreign one, accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb overboard, which fell in a sparsely populated area 6 miles east of the city of Florence. Its charge exploded on impact with the ground. A crater 10 meters deep and 20 meters in diameter formed at the site of the explosion. A private house was damaged. Six residents were injured. In addition, five houses and a church were partially destroyed (The Defense Monitor, 1981).
A B-52 bomber with two nuclear bombs on board collided at an altitude of 10,000 meters with a KS-135 tanker aircraft shortly after the start of the refueling procedure.
The crash killed eight crew members. Two nuclear warheads were subsequently found and disposed of (The National Times, 1981).
The most powerful atomic bomb lies 10 km from the coastline of the United States, according to The Australian newspaper.
At the bottom of the sea just 10 km from the coastline of the United States lies a powerful atomic bomb, according to The Australian newspaper. This bomb is 100 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Until recently, this data was kept by the Pentagon in the strictest confidence and was made public in accordance with the law on access to classified materials. From the declassified archives, it became known that the Mark 15 hydrogen bomb weighing 3450 kg was dropped 40 years ago from a B-47 Stratojet bomber after it collided with a fighter jet in the air during training flights. The pilot of the bomber, Major Howard Richardson, was ordered by the command to drop the bomb, since otherwise he would not be able to land the car. Since 1958, the Mark 15 has been lying off the coast of Tybee Island, Georgia, and no one knows exactly where. The bomb was searched for 10 weeks, but to no avail. A Pentagon memo to the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission said: “A B-47 aircraft with a nuclear weapon on board was damaged in a collision with an F-86 fighter near Sylvania. The pilot made three attempts to land with the bomb, but they ended in failure. After that, the bomb was dropped into the water at the mouth of the Savannah River. No detonation was recorded.
According to documents, the search was completed after another hydrogen bomb was accidentally dropped off the coast of Florence in South Carolina. As a result, a charge of trinitrotoluene detonated, but the atomic warhead did not explode. The search team was urgently sent to the site of a new state of emergency, and she never returned to Tybee Island. Pentagon officials assure that the bomb is not dangerous, and it is much more dangerous to touch it than to leave it at the bottom. “The search for the bomb was completed on April 16, 1958, and it is considered irretrievably lost,” one of the documents says. According to US military experts, now the "Mark 15" rests on the bottom of the sea under a 6-meter water column, 5 meters submerged in sand. The people of Georgia are demanding something be done for their safety, but the military says it will take 5 years to remove the bomb, and the operation will cost $23 million. According to the military, the bomb cannot explode because an important part has been removed from it - the plutonium capsule connecting the TNT charge to the warhead. Meanwhile, former military and local residents claim they have found documents showing the bomb was loaded. According to a former US pilot, a memo to Congress stated that the bomb was a "completely military weapon". According to another former military man, all the bombs used in the exercises in 1957-1959 were loaded.
The United States lost an atomic bomb off the coast of Greenland
On January 21, 1968, a US Air Force B-52 strategic bomber crashed near the American base at North Star Bay. From this base, monitoring of Soviet territory was carried out, as well as flight control of the US strategic nuclear strike aircraft, the aircraft of which had on board nuclear weapons - atomic bombs - that were on cocking.
The crashed plane had four such bombs on board. The plane broke through the ice and ended up on the seabed. As the bomber pilots John Hugh and Joe De Amario told 40 years later, American soldiers and Danish workers carried out an operation that lasted several months. Officially, the US authorities stated that all atomic bombs were raised from the seabed. However, in reality, only three bombs were discovered and recovered from the Arctic Ocean. And the fourth charge was never found. This is evidenced by a declassified American government video obtained by the Air Force.
According to the documents, by the end of January, one of the blackened sections of ice in the area of the accident was visible. The ice there froze again, and through it the outlines of the weapon's parachute were visible. By April, it was decided to send a Star III submarine to the area of the incident to search for the lost bomb, registration number 78252. The real purpose of the submarine's arrival was deliberately hidden from the Danish authorities, the Air Force notes.
“The fact that this operation involves the search for an object or a missing piece of a weapon must be treated as a confidential NOFORN (which means not to be disclosed to any foreign country),” says one of the documents, dated July.
Meanwhile, the underwater search was not crowned with success. At first, all sorts of technical problems interfered with this, and then winter came. It was decided to stop the search operation, the documents say. They also say that the missing part of the weapon contained such radioactive elements as uranium and plutonium.
And now, according to the Air Force, local residents are now worried that the bomb has corroded under the influence of salt water and poses a huge threat to the environment.
Nuclear weapons expert, director of the Berlin "Transatlantic Security Information Center" Otfried Nasser said that only the US Department of Defense "admitted the loss of 11 atomic bombs."
Ecological cleaning of the soil was carried out for eight months by more than 700 people - American military personnel and Danish civilian employees of the air base. Despite extremely difficult weather conditions, almost all work was completed before the start of the spring thaw: 10,500 tons of contaminated snow, ice and other radioactive waste were collected in barrels and sent for disposal in the United States at the Savannah River plant. However, the remnants of radioactive substances still got into the waters of the bay. The total cost of the environmental cleanup work was estimated at approximately $9.4 million. Following this accident, US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered the removal of nuclear weapons from bombers on alert (SAC, 1969; Smith, 1994; Atomic Audit, 1998).
On the ground
A US Air Force B-47 bomber crashed into a hangar at an air base 20 miles northeast of Cambridge, where three MK-6 nuclear warheads were stored. The firefighters put out the fire before they could ignite and detonate the explosives of the ammunition. One US Air Force general put it this way: “If burning aircraft fuel caused a chemical explosion of nuclear weapons, part of the territory in the east of England could turn into a desert.” Another officer said that a major nuclear weapons accident was only averted "thanks to a combination of great heroism, great luck and the will of God" (Gregory, 1990; Hansen, 2001).
On a cruise missile, the explosion of a helium container destroyed and ignited the fuel tanks. The fire lasted 45 minutes. A missile with a nuclear warhead turned into a molten mass. Radioactive contamination in the area of the accident was noted within a radius of several tens of meters (Greenpeace, 1996).
The brake rocket engine of the reentry vehicle of the Minuteman-1 ICBM caught fire due to the fact that the control system of the silo launcher was violated. The missile was on strategic alert and was armed with a nuclear warhead (Greenpeace, 1996).
The incident occurred due to the fact that a worker from the maintenance personnel of a ballistic missile, acting alone while inspecting the missile in violation of the rules, accidentally removed the pyro-bolt and its detonating cable. A nuclear warhead has gone down. As a result, its heat-shielding material was damaged (Greenpeace, 1996).
Accident at a silo launcher with an intercontinental ballistic missile "Titan II". A technician dropped an adjustable wrench during routine maintenance, which pierced the rocket's fuel tank. This led to the leakage of fuel components and to the explosion of its vapors. As a result, the 740-ton cover of the missile silo was torn off, and a 9-megaton nuclear warhead was thrown to a height of 180 meters and fell outside the technological site. However, there was no nuclear explosion, the warhead was discovered and disposed of in time. And yet, there were casualties: one person died, 21 were injured (Gregory, 1990; Hansen, 2001).
One of the most dangerous incidents with British nuclear weapons. When loading an aerial bomb into the plane, due to the unprofessional actions of the attendants, it fell off the transport trolley and fell onto a concrete surface. The base was on alert. The state of high alert lasted 48 hours. After examining the bomb, they found significant damage to individual elements of its nuclear weapon. Moreover, such that specialists from the UK were urgently called in to decontaminate the area (Emergency incidents, 2001).
On the sea
From a US Navy aircraft carrier sailing off the coast of Japan, a bomber with an atomic bomb on board fell off the lift, fell into the open sea near the island of Okinawa and sank at a depth of 4800 meters (IAEA, 2001).
In 1968, an American submarine sank in the Azores region, carrying two torpedoes with nuclear warheads. But not only through the efforts of the Americans, the Atlantic Ocean has become a warehouse of nuclear warheads. In 1989, the Soviet submarine Komsomolets sank in the northern part of the Atlantic. Together with her, at a depth of 1700 meters, there were two more torpedoes with nuclear warheads. Due to the great depth, neither one nor the second submarine, nor their dangerous cargo, could be recovered from the bottom of the sea.
A US Navy aircraft carrier collided with a Soviet Viktor-class nuclear submarine. The aircraft carrier carried several dozen nuclear warheads, and the Soviet submarine carried two nuclear torpedoes (Greenpeace, 1996).
But most of the atomic bombs were lost as a result of air crashes that occurred over the oceans. This happened especially often in the early years of the Cold War - very often there was not enough fuel not only to cross the Atlantic Ocean, and, having exhausted fuel supplies, the bombers simply fell into the water. According to Nasser, the main four routes were over Greenland, the Spanish Mediterranean, Japan and Alaska. And, apparently, it is there that the deadly "gifts" of the Cold War to descendants are still stored.
http://nuclearno.ru/text.asp?316
http://gunman.ru/news/53.html
http://www.mignews.com/news/politic/world/161108_123710_73122.html
I remind you in more detail about and history, The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -Having created nuclear weapons and nuclear technology, the superpowers have repeatedly experienced incidents related to them. During the years of the Cold War, reactors, aerial bombs and torpedoes with nuclear warheads fell into the World Ocean (and remained there). "Lenta.ru" tried to compile a list of the lost.
The Americans left two nuclear submarines in the oceans. On April 10, 1963, during deep-sea tests in the Atlantic, 200 miles east of Cape Cod, the Thresher submarine (one nuclear reactor) sank. The boat lies at a depth of 2560 meters.
On May 22, 1968, the Scorpion submarine disappeared on patrol in the North Atlantic (a reactor and two nuclear torpedoes were on board). The boat was later found at a depth of more than 3,000 meters, on the ground, 740 kilometers southwest of the Azores. The reasons for the death of the boat, by the way, have not been clarified so far.
But the main "nuclear exploits" of the US military in the seas, of course, are connected with aviation.
On February 14, 1950, a B-36 bomber, taking off from the Eielson base in Alaska, participated in a full-scale imitation of a nuclear strike on the territory of the USSR. San Francisco was used as the "target". On board the bomber was a regular Mk.IV nuclear bomb. The plutonium warhead was removed from it, but the uranium metal shell and 5,000 pounds of explosive remained in the bomb.
The plane hit a zone of bad weather over the sea off the coast of British Columbia, iced over, and three of its six engines failed. The crew, seeing such a thing, dropped a bomb (“the usual” part detonated, as there is evidence: the flash of the explosion was seen from the shore), and then left the car, which fell into the water.
On March 10, 1956, a B-47 bomber flew over the Mediterranean from Florida. The aircraft carried two nuclear bombs. No traces of the aircraft and nuclear weapons have been found so far, the official version looks like "lost at sea off the coast of Algeria."
On July 28, 1957, a C-124 transport aircraft was carrying three loaded nuclear bombs and a plutonium charge for another one from Delaware to Europe. Over the Atlantic off the coast of New Jersey, the plane began to lose power, two of the four engines died. The crew dropped two of the three bombs into the ocean about a hundred miles from Atlantic City.
On February 5, 1958, an F-86 fighter collided with a B-47 strategic bomber near Savannah (the coast of Georgia). The fighter crashed, and the damaged B-47 stayed in the air and returned to base. True, for this it was necessary to drop a Mk.15 thermonuclear bomb into the Atlantic (the power output during detonation was about 1.7 megatons). There she still lies, covered with silt, - the search did not lead to anything.
On December 5, 1965, near Okinawa, an unsecured A-4 Skyhawk attack aircraft with a tactical nuclear bomb rolled into the water from the Ticonderoga aircraft carrier due to strong pitching and sank at a depth of about 4900 meters. The Pentagon did not recognize this episode until 1989.
In 1960, the United States, in the context of "further aggravation of the international situation," launched Operation Chrome Dome, which involved the creation of a system of continuous duty in the air of strategic bombers with nuclear weapons on board. The planes were in constant readiness to strike at the intended targets in the depths of the territory of the USSR (the service of such a bomber is shown, for example, in Stanley Kubrick's film "Doctor Strangelove"). Not all such flights ended well.
On January 17, 1966, a B-52G bomber on duty in the air collided with a KC-135 refueling aircraft near the Spanish Palomares. As a result, four thermonuclear bombs of the Mk.28 (B28RI) type with a capacity of up to 1.45 megatons each fell into the "environment". Three of them fell on land (two of them collapsed and contaminated 2.6 square kilometers of territory with plutonium), and one drowned in the sea. She was found and raised 81 days after the disaster.
Despite the harsh criticism of the practice of regular duty of bombers with nuclear weapons on board, which began after the incident in Palomares, Operation Chrome Dome was curtailed only after the incident on January 21, 1968 in the area of the Greenland air base Thule, which caused an international scandal. A duty B-52 crashed there with four nuclear bombs on board. The plane broke through the ice and went to the bottom of Baffin Bay. The US military staged a whole operation to recover parts of the lost weapons, after which they cheerfully reported that all four bombs had been removed. Years later, however, the publication of the results of the examination showed that the components of only three ammunition were found, the fourth still lies somewhere in Greenlandic waters.
Information about possible losses of Soviet and Russian nuclear weapons is still strictly classified. Nevertheless, reports (however, unverified) of incidents with nuclear weapons on board aircraft regularly appear.
At one time, thanks to the former deputy head of intelligence of the Pacific Fleet, Rear Admiral Anatoly Shtyrov, reports were widely circulated about the death of a Tu-95 bomber of the Soviet Long-Range Aviation in the spring of 1976, which fell into Patience Bay (near the southern tip of Sakhalin). There were allegedly two nuclear weapons on board the aircraft, which were subsequently lifted from the ground by the American Greyback special forces submarine (according to another version, the Greyback took only communications equipment, and the bombs still lie at the bottom).
However, the Ministry of Defense does not confirm the conduct of strategic aviation flights in this area in 1976, Rosatom (the successor of the Soviet Minsredmash) denies incidents with nuclear facilities in this area, and the message about the disaster "does not beat" with the known registers of accidents and disasters of long-range aviation aircraft. Information about the duty of domestic aviation with nuclear weapons is still closed, so further investigation of this story is difficult.
The volumes of Soviet aviation patrols were more modest than the American ones, respectively, purely statistically, the number of incidents, no matter how they were classified, was still less than that of the United States. On the other hand, the results of nuclear submarine disasters and reactor burials are known without exception (you can’t hide an awl in a bag).
In 1965, off the coast of Novaya Zemlya, the reactor compartment of the K-19 submarine (project 658) was flooded, which suffered a severe radiation accident in 1961 near Jan Mayen Island. In 1966, the reactor compartment from the K-11 submarine (project 627A "Kit") was flooded in the neighborhood, on which in February 1965 an accident occurred during repairs with a release of radioactivity due to violations during the reloading of the reactor. In the autumn of 1967, in the Tsivolki Bay (north-east coast of Novaya Zemlya), the screen assembly of the reactor of the world's first nuclear icebreaker "Lenin", which suffered from damage to the core, was flooded.
In March 1968, to the north of Midway Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, the diesel-electric submarine of the Pacific Fleet K-129 (project 629A) sank at a depth of about 5000 meters. The causes of death are still not known for certain. On board the boat were three R-21 ballistic missiles with monoblock nuclear warheads with a capacity of about 1 megaton, as well as two nuclear torpedoes. One or two torpedoes were raised by the Americans in 1974, but they failed to raise the missiles.
On April 8, 1970, during the Ocean-70 exercises, a fire broke out on the K-8 nuclear torpedo boat (Project 627A), located in the Bay of Biscay. April 12, after a long struggle for survival, the submarine sank at a depth of about 4700 meters. At the bottom were two reactors and, according to various sources, four or six torpedoes with nuclear warheads.
In 1972 (according to other sources - in 1974) in the Novaya Zemlya depression of the Kara Sea, a reactor was flooded, removed after a nuclear accident in 1968 from the nuclear-powered ship K-140 (project 667A "Navaga").
On September 10, 1981, the K-27 nuclear submarine of project 645 was sunk in the Kara Sea. An experimental ship with two RM-1 reactors with liquid metal (an alloy of lead and bismuth) coolant in May 1968 suffered a severe radiation accident at the combat exit, after which operation became impossible . After a long period of sedimentation, the boat with the reactor compartment filled with 270 tons of bitumen was flooded at a depth of 75 meters. At the moment, there are plans to lift and dispose of it.
On October 3, 1986, on the strategic missile carrier K-219 of project 667AU Burbot, located in the Atlantic east of Bermuda, one of the missiles exploded due to depressurization of the mine. The boat surfaced, but after a long struggle for damage, it sank on the night of October 6 at a depth of more than 5600 meters. At the bottom of the ocean were two reactors, two nuclear torpedoes and (according to various sources) 15 or 16 R-27U ballistic missiles, each of which carried three warheads with a capacity of 200 kilotons.
April 7, 1989 in the Norwegian Sea, after a strong fire at a depth of 1858 meters, the K-278 Komsomolets boat (project 685 Fin, a multi-purpose nuclear submarine with a diving depth of up to 1000 meters) sank. At the bottom were two nuclear reactors and two Shkval missile-torpedoes with nuclear warheads.
The nuclear submarine K-141 Kursk, which sank in August 2000 in the Barents Sea, was raised, like K-429, which sank in Sarannaya Bay (on the Pacific Ocean) back in July 1983. But on August 30, 2003, near the island of Kildin (near Murmansk), the nuclear submarine K-159 of project 627A sank at a depth of 170 meters, which was towed for disposal to Severodvinsk. At the bottom were two more nuclear reactors.
There is another "wonderful" source - radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs). It is something like an "atomic battery": it uses the energy of the natural decay of radioactive materials to generate electricity. Widely used as an autonomous power source. Several of these objects were sunk into the sea for various reasons, while at least one (lost in 1987 near Cape Nizky on Sakhalin) has not been found to this day.
The United States and the Soviet Union lost and never found dozens of nuclear weapons during the Cold War. They lie quietly at the bottom of the seas and oceans. Western experts warn that terrorists dream of getting to them in order to arrange a nuclear nightmare for humanity. At the same time, other experts say that the found charges will be useless...
Exactly 59 years ago, a plane crash occurred in the sky over the US state of Georgia near the town of Savannah. During the exercises, the F-86 Saber fighter collided in the air with the B-47 Stratojet strategic bomber, which was carrying a Mk.15 thermonuclear bomb with a capacity of 1.7 megatons (85 Hiroshima). The fighter crashed to the ground. The bomber managed to return to the base, however, without a bomb: it had to be dropped over the Atlantic in an emergency. There she still lies, covered with silt, - the search did not lead to anything.
The search for nuclear weapons lost in this way has been haunting the minds of conspiracy theorists for decades. They scare people with rumors that terrorists can take possession of these orphan weapons of mass destruction. The famous American writer Tom Clancy dedicated the book “All the Fears of the World” to such a plot. According to his scenario, Middle Eastern militants find a lost bomb and arrange an atomic explosion during a match in the city of Denver in order to push the USSR and the USA and unleash a third world war.
Shocking find
There are more than enough lost nuclear weapons scattered around the world. In the US military, there is even a special term for this Broken Arrow ("broken arrow"). Let's take a look at the most notorious cases. "Tsar Bomba": how the USSR showed the world "Kuzkin's mother"
On February 14, 1950, a B-36 Peacemaker bomber took off with a Mark 4 atomic bomb from Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska to take part in a large-scale simulation of a nuclear strike on the territory of the USSR. This aircraft, equipped with six propeller and four jet engines, had a bad reputation with pilots. They said about his motors "six are spinning, four are on fire", but they were often called "two are spinning, two are on fire, two are smoking, two are scoffing, and two more have gone somewhere."
The unsuccessful B-36 Peacemaker confirmed its reputation this time as well. The plane hit a zone of bad weather over the sea off the coast of British Columbia, iced over, and three of its six engines failed. The crew in this situation decided to drop the atomic bomb (“the usual” part detonated, as there is evidence: the flash of the explosion was seen from the shore), and then left the car falling into the water.
The military searched for several years, but never found this deadly product. In 2016, in the Haida Guai archipelago, a simple diver Sean Smiricinsky discovered a bomb. As it turned out, local residents had already seen it at the bottom, they were the first to make the assumption that this was a nuclear charge lost in 1950 by the US Air Force, but they did not talk about it. The experts had a fair question: could the terrorists be the first to get to the deadly product.
Hidden by the ocean
In March 1956, a B-47 bomber carrying two atomic bombs disappeared over the Mediterranean. Neither the aircraft nor the nuclear weapons were ever found. The official version reads "lost at sea off the coast of Algeria" - one of the main centers of terrorism in the world.
On July 28, 1957, an American Air Force C-124 transport aircraft, which took off from the United States with three nuclear bombs and a plutonium charge for another, failed two of the four engines. To lighten the car, the crew dropped two bombs about a hundred miles from Atlantic City. It was not possible to find them.
In January 1961, the fuel system on board the B-52 strategic bomber failed. The crew also decided to get rid of two nuclear bombs. Moreover, the case did not take place over the ocean, but over the territory of the United States in the state of North Carolina. One bomb hung from a parachute on a tree. Then it turned out that of the six fuses preventing the detonation of the ammunition, only one worked: it was only a miracle that a nuclear catastrophe did not occur. The second bomb sank in the swamp and was not found.
On December 5, 1965, off the Japanese island of Okinawa, an A-4 Skyhawk attack aircraft rolled off the deck of the Ticonderoga aircraft carrier and fell into the water. Together with the aircraft in the depths of the Philippine Sea, which in this place reaches almost five kilometers, the B43 bomb with a nuclear charge of 1 megaton disappeared.
Under the veil of secrecy
This case, which became public only in 1981, and was officially recognized by the Pentagon only in 1989, shocked the Japanese. He once again proved that the military is trying with all its might to hide such oversights. This concerns, first of all, the last decades.
Only those incidents are reported, information about which was somehow leaked to the press before, as well as those that simply cannot be kept silent.
So, in January 1968, one of the largest nuclear incidents in history occurred - a plane crash over the Thule base in Greenland. The B-52G bomber with thermonuclear bombs on board caught fire in the air, broke through the ice of the North Star Bay and went under water. Officially, the US military admitted the loss of 11 bombs, but according to unofficial data, their number could be much more - some say the figure is 50.
The veil of secrecy apparently explains the almost complete lack of information about such incidents in the Soviet Air Force. In part, however, this can be explained by the much lower activity of domestic aviation, primarily in areas remote from the country's territory.
There is only one mention of such an incident in the Long-Range Aviation of the Air Force of the Soviet Union. The former deputy chief of intelligence of the Pacific Fleet, Rear Admiral Anatoly Shtyrov, spoke about him. According to him, in the spring of 1976, a Tu-95 bomber with two nuclear warheads on board fell into Patience Bay (near the southern tip of Sakhalin). According to one version, the nuclear charges were subsequently raised by the American special purpose submarine Grayback, according to another, they still rest on the bottom.
Tragedies under water
The backlog in aviation, the Soviet Union compensated for the submarine fleet. In March 1968, in the Pacific Ocean, north of Midway Atoll, at a depth of about 5 thousand meters, the diesel-electric submarine of the Pacific Fleet K-129 (Project 629A) sank. On board were three R-21 ballistic missiles with monoblock nuclear warheads with a capacity of about 1 megaton. The mystery of the death of the submarine has not yet been disclosed.
In 1974, an expedition organized by the CIA, using a specially equipped ship Glomar Explorer, disguised as a research vessel, tried to raise the boat. It was not possible to completely extract the submarine from the water, only part of it was raised. Rockets with nuclear warheads remained at the bottom. This intriguing story was described in the book "Blind Man's Blind Man" by journalist Sherry Sontag.
The US Navy lost a nuclear-powered submarine on May 22, 1968. On patrol in the North Atlantic, the Scorpion submarine with two nuclear torpedoes disappeared. The boat was found at a depth of more than 3 thousand meters, at the bottom, 740 kilometers southwest of the Azores. The cause of her death also remains unknown.
In April 1970, during the Ocean-70 exercises, a fire broke out on the Soviet nuclear torpedo boat K-8 (Project 627A), located in the Bay of Biscay. April 12, after a long struggle for life, the submarine sank at a depth of about 4700 meters. At the bottom were six torpedoes with nuclear warheads.
On October 3, 1986, on the strategic missile carrier K-219 of project 667AU Burbot, located in the Atlantic east of Bermuda, one of the missiles exploded due to depressurization of the mine. The boat surfaced but could not be saved. Three days later, she sank at a depth of more than 5600 meters. At the bottom of the ocean were 16 R-27U ballistic missiles, each of which carried three warheads with a capacity of 200 kilotons.
In April 1989, an experimental deep-sea Soviet submarine K-278 "Komsomolets" (project 685 "Fin") died in the Norwegian Sea after a strong fire. She sank at a depth of 1858 meters. At the bottom were two high-speed Shkval torpedoes with nuclear warheads. They did not raise them from the depths.
Terrorist's dream
However, is it likely that terrorist organizations will be able to take advantage of the oversight of the military and raise at least one of the lost charges? Will they be able to manufacture a working device ...
According to the American Institute for Nuclear Materials Control, today's terrorists are in principle capable of making a working nuclear bomb. To do this, they need two things - raw materials and the device itself. But the militants have problems with raw materials. The production of weapons-grade plutonium and the enrichment of uranium is a very complex, high-tech process that is not yet available to all states. Theoretically, lost atomic bombs could become a source of nuclear materials for terrorist organizations.
The charges found under water themselves are unlikely to be suitable for an explosion. And the protection systems installed on them will not allow the militants to arrange atomic strikes. But they can serve as an example for creating your own design. Moreover, the general principles of nuclear devices have long been made public.
In order for a nuclear explosion to occur, it is necessary to transfer the nuclear material to a supercritical state, after which uncontrolled fission of nuclei begins with the emission of neutrons and the release of energy. This can be achieved in two ways. Why are "radioactive" products better?
Firstly, according to the “cannon” scheme, as in the “Kid” bomb dropped on Hiroshima, firing one fragment of nuclear material into another. Secondly, according to the implosive scheme, as in the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki, to compress the plutonium sphere with an explosion.
Yet experts at the American Institute for Nuclear Materials Control believe that the likelihood of terrorists creating their own nuclear device using a lost atomic bomb is small.
They do not have enough knowledge and technology for this. And the lost bombs themselves are not so easy to find if the military with their super-powerful equipment could not do it.
In addition, areas where nuclear devices have been lost are under close control, in case of suspicious activity there, no doubt, immediate action will be taken.
During the Cold War, nuclear bombs were often accidentally dropped from the sky. Some have not been found to this day and lie somewhere, disturbing the minds of screenwriters, paranoids and villains who dream of gaining world domination.
Lyubov Klindukhova
The disappearance of the B-47 Stratojet bomber with two nuclear warheads
Coast of Algiers on the border with Morocco
Four Boeing B-47 jet bombers took off from US Air Force MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. With dangerous cargo on board - charges for atomic bombs - they made a non-stop flight across the Atlantic to the Ben Guerir base in Morocco. Question: how many bombers flew to the base?
During the flight, two in-flight refuelings were scheduled. The first passed without incident, but during the descent over the Mediterranean Sea in conditions of heavy cloud cover for the second refueling, one of the four bombers did not get in touch. The Stratojet with two capsules of weapons-grade plutonium, intended for the creation of nuclear weapons, disappeared without a trace.
The last known coordinates of the aircraft were recorded off the Algerian coast on the border with Morocco. The military of France and Morocco were sent to search, even the ships of the Royal Navy of Great Britain sailed, but neither the wreckage of the aircraft, nor traces of nuclear weapons, nor the crew were found. It was officially announced that the plane was lost at sea off the coast of Algeria.
The release of two bombs from the military transport aircraft S-124 "Globemaster" II
Atlantic coast, New Jersey
Such incidents with the irretrievable loss of nuclear weapons in the United States were called "Broken Arrow". And the next "arrows" were destined to fall off the coast of New Jersey.
A C-124 heavy cargo plane carrying three nuclear bombs and a charge for a fourth was bound for Europe from Dover, Delaware. Shortly after takeoff, two of the four engines failed on the plane. On the remaining engines, the crew could not keep the heavy aircraft with cargo at altitude. The only solution was to land the car at the nearest US Navy airfield in Atlantic City. But the plane continued to rapidly lose altitude.
Got rid of excess fuel - did not help. There was a radical solution. The crew dropped two of the three bombs into the ocean about 160 kilometers off the coast of New Jersey. There was no explosion, bombs with a total mass of three tons went under water. With the remaining weapons, the plane landed safely.
Collision between a B-47 bomber and an F-86 fighter
Tybee Island, Atlantic Coast, Georgia
A fighter with a bomber did not share the sky in the east of the US state of Georgia, over Tybee Island, and collided at an 11-kilometer altitude. Pilot fighter Lieutenant Clarence Stewart managed to eject before the machine collapsed. A bomber with a three-ton Mark-15 thermonuclear bomb had its fuel tanks pierced and the engine damaged.
After several unsuccessful attempts by the bomber to land, the crew received permission to drop the bomb into the waters of Wasseau Bay. After that, Commander Howard Richardson, no longer fearing an explosion, landed the plane at Hunter Air Force Base.
The search for the bomb yielded no results. And so it lies, covered with silt, under the water column near the resort town of Tybee Island. Locals insisted that they be spared from such a neighborhood, but the US military assures that it is much more dangerous to get a bomb than to leave it at the bottom of the bay. The official 2001 report on this incident states that the Mark-15 bomb was a zero modification, that is, a training one, and did not contain a nuclear capsule.
Loss of a bomb while patrolling the coast
Goldsboro, North Carolina
And there was another case: the bomb was lost in a swamp.
The B-52 Stratofortress (a second-generation bomber designed for the needs of the Cold War with the main goal of delivering two thermonuclear bombs anywhere in the USSR) crashed on the night of January 24 while patrolling over the city of Goldsboro in the area of the military base. Seymour Johnson. The aircraft's fuel system failed. Performing an emergency landing, at an altitude of three thousand meters, the crew lost control, four managed to leave the plane and survive, the fifth crashed upon landing. During the destruction of the bomber, two Mark-39 thermonuclear bombs with a capacity of 3.8 megatons fell out in the air (for comparison: the power of the bomb detonated over Hiroshima did not exceed 18 kilotons of TNT).
The parachute of the first bomb opened and was found unharmed. From the second, only a few wrecks were found, but the most dangerous parts sank in the swampy area. To prevent someone from accidentally stumbling upon the bomb, the US engineering troops responsible for clearing the territories of former military installations closed access to the alleged location of the bomb.
Attack aircraft "Douglas A-4 Skyhawk" with a bomb went under water
Philippine Sea, Okinawa Island, Ryukyu Archipelago
The American aircraft carrier Ticonderoga was heading from Vietnam to a base in Japan, but on the way near the island of Okinawa in the Philippine Sea, it lost a Skyhawk attack aircraft with a B43 nuclear bomb.
An unsecured attack aircraft rolled off the deck of an aircraft carrier and sank at a depth of almost five thousand meters. Lieutenant Douglas Webster was in the car at the time of the fall. The lieutenant died, and the nuclear bomb was never found.
In 1989, the Japanese suddenly remembered that a bomb was floating near them, and sent a diplomatic request to the States. They were told that yes, it was the case, they lost it, but they couldn’t do anything about it.
Greenland Patrol
North coast of Greenland, US Air Force Thule Air Base
Set of four B28 thermonuclear bombs
The US Air Force Thule Air Base, located in the north of Greenland, was of decisive importance for the defense of the United States in the event of a Soviet attack from the Arctic. Therefore, in the 1960s, large-scale patrols were launched here with the participation of B-52 bombers with thermonuclear weapons on board. They did not wait for an enemy strike, but they staged several catastrophes and almost destroyed themselves on their own, without any help from the USSR.
The last incident, after which the US Air Force Strategic Command turned off the Greenland patrol, occurred on January 21, 1968. Time magazine ranked this incident as one of the most serious nuclear disasters.
A technical malfunction and a fire that started in the cockpit led to the disaster. The cabin filled with acrid smoke, and 140 km from the Thule base, Captain John Hog transmitted a distress signal. The pilots could no longer make out the instrument readings, it was unrealistic to land the car in these conditions, and the commander ordered the crew to leave the plane.
Captain Hogue and another pilot successfully landed right on the base. One crew member was killed. The longest search was for the second captain, Curtis. He left the burning plane first and landed ten kilometers from the base. They found him almost a day later. In January, in Greenland, as you understand, there was a merciless frost, but he survived by wrapping himself in a parachute.
Meanwhile, the bomber itself collapsed and went under the ice. There were four bombs on board. There was no nuclear explosion (if the bombs had exploded, Greenland would have turned from an ice island into a molten coal), but the area where the debris was scattered was subjected to radioactive contamination. The cleanup operation was led by US Air Force General Richard Hunziker. Infected snow and ice were loaded into wooden containers. Containers - in steel tanks. Along the way, they collected the wreckage of the aircraft and hydrogen bombs. All this radioactive good, at the request of the Danish authorities (Greenland is under the control of Denmark), was transported to the United States. However, after examining the wreckage, they came to the conclusion that only the components of three bombs were recovered. The fourth remained in Greenland waters!
P.S. If you think that these are all bombs that can interfere with your scuba diving or ice fishing off the coast of Greenland, then you are mistaken: these are just the most high-profile cases of irretrievably lost nuclear bombs. And not only the efforts of the United States in the oceans flooded a terrible weapon. Officially, there were no such cases in the USSR Air Force, but the Soviet Union bypassed the United States in terms of the number of nuclear submarines lost in the ocean with nuclear warheads.
Exactly 46 years ago, on January 21, 1968, one of the largest nuclear accidents in history occurred - a plane crash over the Thule base in Greenland. An American B-52G bomber carrying four thermonuclear bombs caught fire in the air and crashed onto the ice of the Northern Star Bay. A nuclear explosion did not occur, but the radioactive components were scattered over a large area, and then completely went under water. In 2008, the British corporation BBC published a series of articles based on declassified documents, according to which only three bombs were found, while the fourth has not been found so far.
As it turned out, there are many similar incidents in history. According to CNN, during the years of the Cold War, the US lost 11 atomic bombs due to various accidents. But there have been cases when nuclear weapons have been lost not because of a technical malfunction or accident, but as a result of human inattention or outright negligence. We have collected six stories of how the US military and dignitaries inadvertently lost nuclear weapons or their components.
Messed up missiles
On August 30, 2007, six thermonuclear warheads were found missing at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. As it turned out later, the day before, a group of US Air Force personnel who were preparing a B-52H bomber to be sent to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana did not carry out a number of required checks, as a result of which a change in the storage location of missiles with training warheads went unnoticed. As a result, the military mistakenly installed six W80-1 warheads with a thermonuclear charge on the left wing of the aircraft, and training warheads were installed on the right wing. When accepting work, the operator of the radar station inspected the missiles mounted on the right wing, he did not inspect the left wing. The crew captain also neglected to visually inspect the aircraft.
In the morning, the B-52 flew to Barksdale, after which it stood on the platform of the air base without security for nine hours. Only in the evening on Minot was discovered missing. At this time, one of the officers who dismantled the missiles noticed external differences between the warheads on the pylons of the right and left wings. Only after an additional inspection, the error, due to which the nuclear weapon was lost for 36 hours, was discovered. Various disciplinary sanctions then received 70 people involved in the incident.
Captain's mistake
On March 11, 1958, while flying over South Carolina, B-47E bomber captain Bruce Kulka noticed problems in the bomb bay and went to check it out. Not finding a problem, he decided to inspect the bomb from above. To do this, he tried to climb higher and grabbed the emergency bomb release lever. The Mark 6 atomic bomb broke through the hatch of the aircraft and flew down, and the captain of the aircraft miraculously managed to cling to and not follow the bomb.
The shell landed on a residential building in a sparsely populated area six miles east of the city of Florence. There was an explosion, but not a nuclear one: since the bomb was transported disassembled and the nuclear warhead remained in the plane. However, six people were injured in the incident.
obsolete aircraft
A similar incident occurred on May 22, 1957, when a B-36 Peacemaker bomber was transporting a thermonuclear bomb to Kirtland Base in New Mexico.
Experts say that the aircraft was technically obsolete, it was impossible to transport weapons of this class on it. As Michael Daysik writes in his book on the B-36, the aircraft's propulsion system (six propeller and four jet engines) had the nickname "six spinning, four burning," but due to frequent fires and general unreliability, this formula was reworked into "two spinning, two are burning, two are smoking, two are making fun, and two more have disappeared somewhere.
The crew of the plane did not keep track of the safety of the bomb bay and accidentally dropped a projectile seven kilometers from its destination. A thermonuclear bomb fell just 500 meters from the Sandia nuclear weapons depot. One thermonuclear explosion was supposed to lead to another series of explosions, which would lead to catastrophic consequences. But for unknown reasons, despite the detonation of a conventional explosive, the plutonium core of the bomb did not detonate.
Taiwanese fuses
In late 2006, the United States, along with a shipment of helicopter batteries, mistakenly sent four fuses for nuclear warheads mounted on Minuteman ballistic missiles to Taiwan. Despite the fact that the technology for the production of these fuses was developed back in the sixties of the last century, it is still under the heading of secrecy. In connection with the mistake, Taiwan got the opportunity to study the design of American nuclear weapons, especially since the United States did not even notice the loss - the incident became known only a year and a half later, when Taiwanese customers complained about the short supply of batteries. At the same time, Taiwan said that it informed the United States about the error in a timely manner, but due to violations in the information exchange system between the Taiwanese and American authorities, Washington did not learn about what happened in time. Soon, nuclear warhead fuses were returned to the United States.
Dry cleaning for the nuclear key
If the nuclear weapon itself is hard to lose, then such an important attribute necessary for attack and defense as the key to the nuclear suitcase is easy to lose. This key, as it turned out, is a plastic identification card with a secret code. The most famous case of losing a key occurred with the 39th President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, who always carried an ID in his jacket pocket. Once he took his jacket to the dry cleaners and forgot to take the key out of it. The loss was discovered within a few hours, during which time they had not yet had time to wash the jacket with the “nuclear button” trigger.
Absent-minded President
Another absent-minded president who lost his nuclear access code was Bill Clinton. This story is described in his memoirs by the former member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States, General Hugh Shelton. In 2000, representatives of the country's Ministry of Defense decided to change the codes from the nuclear briefcase, but the presidential aide said that the head of state did not have the codes, since they were lost. As it turned out, the United States remained without a key to nuclear weapons a few months ago, but during the mandatory monthly check of the safety of the presidential key, the assistant to the head of state stated that Clinton had the card, and the president himself was at a meeting, so it was not possible to verify the veracity of the statements of the assistant . Clinton himself did not even imagine when and where he could lose the key to the nuclear suitcase.
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