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davieG

Wow! That was close! - US plane in 1961 'nuclear bomb near-miss'

By davieG, in General Chat

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davieG

davieG

Posted
Posted

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24183879

 

A four-megaton nuclear bomb was one switch away from exploding over the US in 1961, a newly declassified US document confirms.

Two bombs were on board a B-52 plane that went into an uncontrolled spin over North Carolina - both bombs fell and one began the detonation process.

The document was first published in the UK's Guardian newspaper.

The US government has acknowledged the accident before, but never made public how close the bomb came to detonating.

The document was obtained by journalist Eric Schlosser under the Freedom of Information Act.

Schlosser told the BBC such an explosion would have "changed literally the course of history".

The plane was on a routine flight when it began to break up over North Carolina on 23 January 1961.

As it was breaking apart, a control inside the cockpit released the two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs over Goldsboro.

One fell to the ground unarmed. But the second "assumed it was being deliberately released over an enemy target - and went through all its arming mechanisms save one, and very nearly detonated over North Carolina," Mr Schlosser told the BBC's Katty Kay.

Only the failure of a single low-voltage switch prevented disaster, he said.

_70034176_us_goldsboro_0913.gif

The bomb was almost 260 times powerful than the bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The accident occurred during the height of the Cold War between US and Russia, just over a year before the Cuban missile crisis brought nuclear fears to the US's front door.

There has been ongoing speculation ever since, including a 1961 book by former government scientist Dr Ralph Lapp.

The newly declassified document was written eight years after the incident by US government scientist Parker Jones - who was responsible for mechanical safety of nuclear devices.

In it, he comments on and corrects Lapp's narrative of the accident, including listing that three out of the four fail safe mechanisms failed, not five out of six as originally thought by Lapp.

"One set off by the fall. Two rendered ineffective by aircraft breakup," Mr Jones writes. "It would have been bad news in spades."

"One simple dynamo-technology low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe."

There has been no official comment to the newly declassified details.

 

 

bovril

bovril

Posted
Posted

Thought it was going to be 2017?

Hmmmm, I thought it was supposed to be 50 years after the event....

 

Edited to say a quick wiki check proves you right!

Guesty

Guesty

Posted
Posted

You do wonder how many times the world came close to the end of civilisation during the Cold War. I'll bet there are more instances that only a few know about too.

 

I watched a couple interesting documentaries on this it's surprising how many times it nearly happened and like you say this is just what people have found out about..

 

Once the USA got close to launching on Russia until someone remembered the day before they'd been practicing a real world War Games scenario and they'd forgotten to take the CD out and for some reason it'd started playing. I kid you not!

 

Another time, I can't remember the reasons why but Russia were certain the US had launched nukes at them. They were so convinced that all the Generals took the nuclear launch codes briefcase out of the safe and took it to Yeltsin. They all told Yeltsin he had to launch and if he'd followed the correct protocol he should have. Against the wishes of all his Generals he picked up the red phone and phoned the President directly and told him what was happening. basically saying I've got my finger on the trigger there's no point in lying cause at the first sign the US is toast. Luckily it was a misunderstanding.

 

But the closest we ever came was when Russia nearly launched on the US. They had this new satellite that was focused on the US' silos and could see the light of a launch. One man was in the control room and all off a sudden the alarm went off to say the US had launched. He decided to reset it and hope it was wrong. Then it went of again. Now he really wasn't sure what to do and he couldn't ring anyone because (I think if memory is correct) the phones weren't working. So he was all on his own. He reset the alarm and for a third time it went off. Now he knew he had to launch, but for some reason he didn't.

 

Finally communication was restored and he was given conformation the US hadn't launched. It turned out after they researched it that when the sun light bounced of the atmosphere at a certain degree it mimicked a US launch and set all the alarms off. 

 

 

So now we all owe our lives to a Russian Peasant.     

 

Edit: He wasn't dishonorably discharged.
leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted

I watched a couple interesting documentaries on this it's surprising how many times it nearly happened and like you say this is just what people have found out about..

 

Once the USA got close to launching on Russia until someone remembered the day before they'd been practicing a real world War Games scenario and they'd forgotten to take the CD out and for some reason it'd started playing. I kid you not!

 

Another time, I can't remember the reasons why but Russia were certain the US had launched nukes at them. They were so convinced that all the Generals took the nuclear launch codes briefcase out of the safe and took it to Yeltsin. They all told Yeltsin he had to launch and if he'd followed the correct protocol he should have. Against the wishes of all his Generals he picked up the red phone and phoned the President directly and told him what was happening. basically saying I've got my finger on the trigger there's no point in lying cause at the first sign the US is toast. Luckily it was a misunderstanding.

 

But the closest we ever came was when Russia nearly launched on the US. They had this new satellite that was focused on the US' silos and could see the light of a launch. One man was in the control room and all off a sudden the alarm went off to say the US had launched. He decided to reset it and hope it was wrong. Then it went of again. Now he really wasn't sure what to do and he couldn't ring anyone because (I think if memory is correct) the phones weren't working. So he was all on his own. He reset the alarm and for a third time it went off. Now he knew he had to launch, but for some reason he didn't.

 

Finally communication was restored and he was given conformation the US hadn't launched. It turned out after they researched it that when the sun light bounced of the atmosphere at a certain degree it mimicked a US launch and set all the alarms off. The poor bugger in the control room who saved us all from a nuclear holocaust was dishonorably discharged from the Russian army for not following orders.

 

So now we all owe our lives to a Russian Peasant.     

 

 

Yup,  Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov. The man who stopped a nuclear war.

 

And those incidents are just the ones we know about. Who knows how many more there were?

Guesty

Guesty

Posted
Posted

Although it's slightly off-topic I've always been interested by the Letter of Last Resort the Prime Minister has to write to our Nuclear Sub's. It would be interesting to see what each Prime Minister had instructed the Captain to do in the event we were wiped out, how they worded the letter and if they added anything else. But for obvious reasons we'll never know.

 

It must be a hard and incredibly profound letter to have to write on one of your first days on the job.

 

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

leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted

Although it's slightly off-topic I've always been interested by the Letter of Last Resort the Prime Minister has to write to our Nuclear Sub's. It would be interesting to see what each Prime Minister had instructed the Captain to do in the event we were wiped out, how they worded the letter and if they added anything else. But for obvious reasons we'll never know.

 

It must be a hard and incredibly profound letter to have to write on one of your first days on the job.

 

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

 

I've been quite interested in this myself. Apparently the PM has four choices to choose from:

 

- Retaliate with nukes

- Don't retaliate with nukes

- Use the captains own discretion

- Put the sub under command of the US/Aus, if possible.

 

I wonder which Dave chose when he wrote the letter?

bovril

bovril

Posted
Posted

I've been quite interested in this myself. Apparently the PM has four choices to choose from:

 

- Retaliate with nukes

- Don't retaliate with nukes

- Use the captains own discretion

- Put the sub under command of the US/Aus, if possible.

 

I wonder which Dave chose when he wrote the letter?

 

Blame the EU.

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