Nuclear Oops List

This is just frightening. [Link]

No one is immune: tyops typos slip in, numbers get misdialed, directions are screwed up. We all make them; no one is perfect.

Except that these mistakes involved thermonuclear weapons, and could easily have reduced a sizable hunk of this world to a Geiger-clicking pit. While I don’t have the time or the space to list all of them, here’s a sample of nuclear boo-boos guaranteed to make you at least look up the next time a plane scrawls a contrail across the sky, or go fishing.

What's amazing isn't how many of these accidents have happened, (though that's scary enough), what is scary is how many were never recovered.

Nuclear military accidents. [Link]

• February 5, 1958 – Savannah, Georgia, USA – Nuclear bomb lost

• see Tybee Bomb. A B-47 bomber jettisoned a Mark 15 Mod 0 nuclear bomb over the Atlantic Ocean after a midair collision with an F-86 Sabre during a simulated combat mission from Homestead Air Force Base in Florida. The F-86’s pilot ejected and parachuted to safety. The USAF claimed the B-47 tried landing at Hunter Air Force Base three times before the bomb was jettisoned at 7,200 ft (2,200 m) near Tybee Island, Georgia. The B-47 pilot maintains he successfully landed in one attempt only after he first jettisoned the bomb. A 3-square-mile (7.8 km²) area near Wassaw Sound was searched for 9 weeks before the search was called off. The bomb was searched for in 2001 and not found. A new group in 2004 claims to have found an underwater object which it thinks is the bomb.^[19]

• March 11, 1958 – Florence, South Carolina, USA – Non-nuclear detonation of a nuclear bomb

• A B-47 bomber flying from Savannah, Georgia accidentally released a nuclear bomb after the bomb lock failed. The chemical explosives detonated on impact in the suburban neighborhood of Florence, South Carolina. Radioactive substances were flung across the area. Several minor injuries resulted and the house on which the bomb fell was destroyed. No radiation sickness occurred.

and

• January 24, 1961 – A B-52 bomber suffered a fire caused by a major leak in a wing fuel cell and exploded in midair 12 miles (19 km) north of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, Goldsboro, North Carolina. The incident released the bomber’s two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs. Five crewmen parachuted to safety, but three died—two in the aircraft and one on landing. Three of the four arming devices on one of the bombs activated, causing it to carry out many of the steps needed to arm itself, such as the charging of the firing capacitors and, critically, the deployment of a 100-foot (30 m) diameter retardation parachute. The parachute allowed the bomb to hit the ground with little damage. The fourth arming device — the pilot’s safe/arm switch — was not activated, and so the weapon did not detonate. The other bomb plunged into a muddy field at around 700 mph (300 m/s) and disintegrated. Its tail was discovered about 20 feet (6 m) down and much of the bomb recovered, including the tritium bottle and the plutonium. However, excavation was abandoned because of uncontrollable flooding by ground water, and most of the thermonuclear stage, containing uranium, was left in situ. It was estimated to lie at around 180 feet (55 m). The Air Force purchased the land and fenced it off to prevent its disturbance, and it is tested regularly for contamination, although none has so far been found. ^[22]