40 Years Ago, the US Lost a Nuclear Bomb 470
Hugh Pickens writes "A BBC investigation has found that in 1968 the US abandoned a nuclear weapon beneath the ice in northern Greenland after a nuclear-armed B52 crashed on the ice a few miles from Thule Air Base. The Stratofortress disintegrated on impact with the sea ice and parts of it began to melt through to the fjord below. The high explosives surrounding the four nuclear weapons on board detonated without setting off the nuclear devices, which had not been armed by the crew. The Pentagon maintained that all four weapons had been 'destroyed' and while technically true, investigators piecing together fragments from the crash could only account for three of the weapons. Investigators found that 'something melted through ice such as burning primary or secondary.' A subsequent search by a US submarine was beset by technical problems and, as winter encroached and the ice began to freeze over, the search was abandoned. 'There was disappointment in what you might call a failure to return all of the components,' said a former nuclear weapons designer at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory. 'It would be very difficult for anyone else to recover classified pieces if we couldn't find them.'"
Experimental nuclear waste storage? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps this can somehow be used to demonstrate that nuclear waste can be safely disposed of in the ocean floor? There have been serious proposals for disposing of waste in holes drilled hundreds of feet beneath the seabed in especially deep water.
I know this is unpopular with the anti-nuclear crowd, but a "real demo" may provide useful data.
The six-step plan (Score:5, Interesting)
Did Denmark know or not? (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the BBC articles maintains that the US did not tell Denmark about both the nuclear bombs used in Chrome Dome missions, and the fact that they lost one.
Greenland is a self-governing province of Denmark but the carrying of nuclear weapons over Danish territory was kept secret.
But the real purpose of this search was deliberately hidden from Danish officials.
One document from July reads: "Fact that this operation includes search for object or missing weapon part is to be treated as confidential NOFORN", the last word meaning not to be disclosed to any foreign country.
The other article says:
Denmark did not co-operate with the parliament's petitions committee, and is still refusing to release key environmental radiation records made of Thule at the time.
The Danish government had always denied that nuclear-armed US planes were flying over Danish-controlled Greenland - until the crash occurred.
And according to Ms Wallis, it is still trying to brush a difficult issue under the carpet.
Which at least implies that the Danish government knew but was trying to keep a lid on it.
So which is it?
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:2, Interesting)
Ooops, forgot... when I blame Clinton, it's for eliminating SAC and starting the ball rolling the latest incidents (live warheads flown on bombers without knowledge, missile crews asleep, etc.). Obviously he's not responsible for this particular incident, either.
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:2, Interesting)
"just what the hell did the USA think it was doing flying nuclear bombs around outside their own borders in the first place"
Whilst I agree it doesn't seem right, it's not a lot different from some other defence strategies. Us Brits, IIRC, have a number of nuclear submarines out and about around the world at any one time. This is for MAD purposes. You may learn where our nuclear bases are and take them out in the same nuking run as you take our cities.
But if we have subs with ICBMs on random paths through the ocean then good luck buster.
MAD indeed.
Re:Experimental nuclear waste storage? (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't need to drill -- just find soft seafloor and shape the waste to imbed itself into the ground.
The major technical problem is that a few decades down the road, you might want to reuse the waste. Sea floor retrieval is slightly more problematic.
more losses (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Interesting)
Those nuclear bombs stationed outside US borders (and the US nuclear stockpile in general) were probably the only thing keeping the Soviets from rolling their tanks all the way to Paris. And if you think US imperialism is bad, try living under the Soviet version.
- you may believe this, but this is just a bunch of propaganda that was pushed into the throats of the US citizens to make sure they shut the fuck up and only cheer as the US pushed their weaponry into every possible hole in the world.
Stalin was a maniac, that can be said with certainty, however after his death the USSR quickly got away from the idea of 'spreading the communism' onto the rest of the world and just tried to survive in its own planned economy. It was already the biggest country in the world (even now Russia is almost twice as large as the next contender, Canada) and holding onto that territory with hundreds of nations living on it was a challenge in itself, adding more territory with people who had completely different mentality would not work and it was understood.
Atmospheric Testing (Score:4, Interesting)
In my opinion, these accidental releases of radioactive material pale in comparison
to the atmospheric tests the US used to do before it was
banned [wikipedia.org] in 1963.
Here are some of the tests [vt.edu].
Reminded me of this (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=297#more-297 [damninteresting.com]
Another amazing history of WWII era relics trapped under the ice (but they got them back!)
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:4, Interesting)
But you are just confirming my statement. After the death of Stalin there was no new conquests, no new territories. Afghanistan was an attempt at showing off, also an attempt to stop the inflow of drugs into the 3 USSR republics bordering it. The same cannot be said about the USA that was and still is in constant state of war. USA was and is the main international aggressor for the past 60 years, whether the US people understand this or not, they should try and look at their own country the way the rest of the world sees it from the outside.
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:gentlemen: (Score:5, Interesting)
Link [mentalfloss.com] The one under the wetlands in NC is probably the most recoverable. All you have to do is move 5-600 tons of sand and silt while keeping the groundwater under control, and hope that the safety shielding hasn't been compromised from impact and exposure. A separate article I can't dig up right now tells the story of the guy that found it (recently, within the last 10 years). He was able to deduce the location by taking and graphing hundreds (thousands?) of radiation measurements. He wrote the air force and they said "No, it's fine where it is."
Another Lost Nuke (Score:3, Interesting)
We lost a family member in 1962 whose body, nor aircraft, nor the nuclear weapons on board were never recovered.
In the past few years there is some news that some pilots who went down in the Pacific were captured by Soviet patrols. That leaves it as an unknown whether our family member survived as well as unknown as to whether his plane or the weapons on board were recovered by the Soviets or other nations. Odds are that our family member perished immediately. We will never know for certain.
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah sure, forget your founding fathers. Land of the free eh?
Some of the Founding Fathers advocated for a non-interventionist foreign policy free of "entanglements" (Washington). Others (Jefferson) were in favor of an interventionist foreign policy. Trying to paint all of the founding fathers with one broad brush stroke is a mistake.
See, the USA claims it is different, either it lives up to that, or many will ridecule it.
Every Great Power has claimed that it's "different". An objective reading of history will uncover hypocrisy on the part of nearly every nation on this planet, including yours I'd suspect. Are you really that surprised that the United States also engages in it?
War in the rest of the world meant that that trade was being endangered. Sea warfare made it difficult, dangerous and expensive to transport anything anywhere, and as a consequence, the USA had a direct reason to get involved.
I'm sure that was a contributory factor. The sinking of American ships on the high seas and Zimmerman telegram also had something to do with it.
At any rate, to come back to your initial argument that all world powers do it, keep in mind that all world powers also find out at some point that its not true. Usually that comes together with their decline, and often their destruction.
All powers eventually decline. Personally I wouldn't mind seeing my country decline a little bit and focus on the home front instead of the globe. I would want to see another Democracy come forward and assume our place in the World first though -- since that doesn't appear too likely in the next few decades I think we'll have to resign ourselves to our respective roles in the World. You may not like it but ask yourself if you'd really be happier seeing China or Russia in our place.
Re:gentlemen: (Score:3, Interesting)
The US Military couldn't find that lost nuke because I already salvaged it and will use the components to build something far more dangerous than a conventional nuclear bomb.
With this device I will have leaders the world over cower in abject terror as I take command of the world throgh them.
Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, EH?
Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:gentlemen: (Score:5, Interesting)
All you have to do is move 5-600 tons of sand and silt while keeping the groundwater under control, and hope that the safety shielding hasn't been compromised from impact and exposure.
That would seem to be fairly simple to do now - modern mining techniques will freeze surrounding soft soil with liquid CO2 or N2, then they can dig a tunnel through the now solid soil.
Re:Not that rare, unfortunately (Score:3, Interesting)
Have a cite for the 92 number? The usual number given is a fraction of that, 11.
I'm sorry, I mixed up "known lost bombs" and "US bombs" - the 92 includes (a lot of) sowjet ones:
http://www.genecurtis.com/LostNuclearBombs.htm [genecurtis.com]
It probably is more than 11 though, don't confuse "number of incidents" with "number of warheads",
one of the acronyms to look up here is MIRV [wikipedia.org].
Re:Greenland eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Look up "Estadounidense" in Google.
The word did catch up in the rest of the continent.