Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/13/in-1958-a-american-b-47-bomber-accidentally-dropped-an-unarmed-nuclear-bomb-on-a-family-farm.html
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What does “unarmed” mean in this context? I’d expect a whole lot of contamination in the area even if there wasn’t a megaton sized boom.
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Wikipedia’s happy list of military nuclear accidents
The 1961 Goldsboro incident is especially piquant: “Information declassified since 2013 has shown that one of the bombs was judged by nuclear weapons engineers at the time to have been only one safety switch away from detonation” …also (nearer-by this clueless one), the British Columbia crash where the jettisoned bomb was never found (supposedly).
Often amazing we aren’t all glowing Godzilla dodging bikini-bottom dwellers
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At least it wasn’t two scoops of candy-coated kaboom.
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From Wikipedia article 1958 Mars Bluff B-47 nuclear weapon loss incident
The bomb, which did not have its fissile nuclear core installed at the time of the accident, impacted with the ground, and its conventional high explosives detonated.
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Thanks. I did not know the fissile material was removable, I just assumed there was something blocking the material from becoming critical.
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The public is not really aware of how many cases similar to this are on record (or not on record, with respect to the Soviets), in some cases they never even found the bomb. As well, nine nuclear subs have been lost at sea.
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A little less harrowing thing happened to my friend, Krazy Kris, how ran a paintball field near Ft. Riley. One day a cluster munition landed unexploded in his yard. I don’t know if the bomblets were inert or not, but they had to come and carefully remove it.
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Sealed “all-up” rounds came later - the earlier ones benefited from separation of the dangerous things as well as more easy replacement of some critical limited life components.
For many of the early bomber missions, I think well into Chrome Dome, there was a civilian “AEC-man” on each bomber controlling access to the good parts until their use was imminent. Technically US weapons today are still “owned” by civilians and only loaned to the military. The dance between the two worlds, most recently touched on briefly in Nolan’s movie, continues from Oppenheimer/Groves to today.
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Good overview / primer:
“Don’t juggle the demon core, son!”
One of the reasons for this arrangement was to keep Curtis B. LeMay at least at arm’s length from the nukes.
You probably know this already, but for anyone who’s interested:
Back in the early days when the US had maybe half a dozen bombs that were stored at Los Alamos and procedures (especially the parts that were supposed to make sure only the president could authorise deployment) were rudimentary and hazy, LeMay had a gentlemen’s agreement with the commandant at Los Alamos. Which boiled down to Le May just sending over a couple of planes to pick up the goods in the event.
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