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[h=1]Atom bomb nearly detonated over North Carolina in 1961
[/h]
LONDON (AFP) - The US Air Force came dramatically close to detonating a huge atomic bomb over North Carolina in 1961, according to a newly declassified document published by Britain's Guardian newspaper on Saturday.Two hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over the city of Goldsboro, North Carolina on January 23, 1961 when the B-52 plane carrying them broke up in mid-air, according to the file.One of the bombs began to detonate -- a single switch was all that stopped it from doing so. The three other safety mechanisms designed to prevent an unintended detonation failed.The US government has acknowledged the accident before, but the 1969 document is the first confirmation of how close the United States came to nuclear catastrophe on that day."It would have been bad news in spades," wrote its author, US government scientist Parker F. Jones.The bomb was 260 times more powerful than the one that devastated Hiroshima in 1945, according to the Guardian.The accident happened at the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.The declassified report was obtained by US investigative journalist Eric Schlosser under freedom of information legislation."The US government has consistently tried to withhold information from the American people in order to prevent questions being asked about our nuclear weapons policy," said Schlosser."We were told there was no possibility of these weapons accidentally detonating, yet here's one that very nearly did."Jones jokingly titled the report "Goldsboro Revisited, or: How I Learned To Mistrust the H-Bomb", a reference to Stanley Kubrick's classic 1964 film about nuclear Armageddon, "Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb".
Atom bomb nearly detonated over North Carolina in 1961
More info on the incident.....
The aircraft, a B-52G based at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, was on a 24-hour "Coverall" airborne alert mission on the Atlantic seaboard. Around midnight on 23–24 January 1961, it rendezvoused with a tanker for mid-air refueling. During the hook-up, the tanker crew advised the B-52 aircraft commander, Major W. S. Tulloch, that his aircraft had a leak in its right wing. The refueling rendezvous was called off, and ground control was notified of the problem. The aircraft was directed to assume a holding pattern off the coast until the majority of fuel was consumed. However when the B-52 reached its assigned position, the pilot reported that the leak had worsened and that 37,000 pounds (17,000 kg) of fuel had been lost in three minutes. The aircraft was immediately directed to return and land at the base in Goldsboro.
As it descended through 10,000 feet (3,000 m) on its approach to the airfield, the pilots were no longer able to keep the aircraft in trim and lost control of it. The captain ordered the crew to eject, which they did at 9,000 feet (2,700 m). Five men ejected and landed safely. Another ejected but did not survive the landing, and two died in the crash.[SUP][4][/SUP] The third pilot of the bomber, Lt. Adam Mattocks, is the only man known to have successfully bailed out of the top hatch of a B-52 without an ejection seat.[SUP][5][/SUP][SUP][6][/SUP] The crew last saw the aircraft intact with its payload of two Mark 39 nuclear bombs on board.[SUP][2][/SUP] The wreckage of the aircraft covered a 2-square-mile (5.2 km[SUP]2[/SUP]) area of tobacco and cotton farmland at Faro, about 12 miles north of Goldsboro.[SUP][7][/SUP]
The two nuclear bombs separated from the gyrating aircraft as it broke up between 10,000 and 2,000 feet (3,000 and 610 m). Three of the four arming mechanisms on one of the bombs activated, causing it to execute many of the steps needed to arm itself, such as charging the firing capacitors and, critically, deployment of a 100-foot-diameter (30 m) ****** parachute. The parachute allowed that bomb to hit the ground with little damage.
According to former military analyst Daniel Ellsberg, he saw highly classified documents indicating that the pilot's safe/arm switch was the only one of the six arming devices on the bomb that prevented detonation.[SUP][1][/SUP][SUP][8][/SUP] The Pentagon claims that there was no chance of an explosion and that two arming mechanisms had not activated. A United States Department of Defense spokesperson told United Press International reporter Donald May that the bomb was unarmed and could not explode.[SUP][8][/SUP] Later, however, it was found that both bombs were fully functional and that the pilot's safe/arm switch was indeed all that prevented detonation.[SUP][9][/SUP][SUP][10][/SUP]
The second bomb plunged into a muddy field at around 700 miles per hour (310 m/s) and disintegrated.[SUP][11][/SUP] The tail was discovered about 20 feet (6.1 m) below ground. Parts of the bomb were recovered, including its tritium bottle and the plutonium. However, excavation was abandoned as a result of uncontrollable ground-water flooding. Most of the thermonuclear stage, containing uranium, was left in situ. The Army Corps of Engineers purchased a 400 feet (120 m) circular easement over the buried component.[SUP][12][/SUP] The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill determined the buried depth of the secondary component to be 180 feet (55 m), plus or minus 10 feet (3.0 m).[SUP][13][/SUP]
The commander of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team, Lt. Jack B. ReVelle, speaking to a writer in 2011 of the bomb that had deployed its chute, said: "How close was it to exploding? My opinion is damn close. You might now have a very large Bay of North Carolina if that thing had gone off".[SUP][14][/SUP] He also said the size of each bomb was 3.8 megatons, more than 250 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb, and large enough to have a 100% kill zone of seventeen miles. Each bomb would exceed the yield of all munitions (outside of testing) ever detonated in the history of the world by TNT, gunpowder, conventional bombs, and the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts combined.[SUP][14][/SUP]
In 2013, investigative journalist Eric Schlosser published a book, Command and Control, in which he presented a declassified 1969 document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. In the report, entitled "Goldsboro Revisited," written by Parker F. Jones, a supervisor of nuclear safety at Sandia National Laboratories, Jones says that "one simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe," and concludes that "The MK 39 Mod 2 bomb did not possess adequate safety for the airborne alert role in the B-52."[SUP][15][/SUP] Schlosser writes that "The US government has consistently tried to withhold information from the American people in order to prevent questions being asked about our nuclear weapons policy," he said. "We were told there was no possibility of these weapons accidentally detonating, yet here's one that very nearly did."[SUP][10][/SUP]
1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[/h]LONDON (AFP) - The US Air Force came dramatically close to detonating a huge atomic bomb over North Carolina in 1961, according to a newly declassified document published by Britain's Guardian newspaper on Saturday.Two hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over the city of Goldsboro, North Carolina on January 23, 1961 when the B-52 plane carrying them broke up in mid-air, according to the file.One of the bombs began to detonate -- a single switch was all that stopped it from doing so. The three other safety mechanisms designed to prevent an unintended detonation failed.The US government has acknowledged the accident before, but the 1969 document is the first confirmation of how close the United States came to nuclear catastrophe on that day."It would have been bad news in spades," wrote its author, US government scientist Parker F. Jones.The bomb was 260 times more powerful than the one that devastated Hiroshima in 1945, according to the Guardian.The accident happened at the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.The declassified report was obtained by US investigative journalist Eric Schlosser under freedom of information legislation."The US government has consistently tried to withhold information from the American people in order to prevent questions being asked about our nuclear weapons policy," said Schlosser."We were told there was no possibility of these weapons accidentally detonating, yet here's one that very nearly did."Jones jokingly titled the report "Goldsboro Revisited, or: How I Learned To Mistrust the H-Bomb", a reference to Stanley Kubrick's classic 1964 film about nuclear Armageddon, "Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb".
Atom bomb nearly detonated over North Carolina in 1961
More info on the incident.....
The aircraft, a B-52G based at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, was on a 24-hour "Coverall" airborne alert mission on the Atlantic seaboard. Around midnight on 23–24 January 1961, it rendezvoused with a tanker for mid-air refueling. During the hook-up, the tanker crew advised the B-52 aircraft commander, Major W. S. Tulloch, that his aircraft had a leak in its right wing. The refueling rendezvous was called off, and ground control was notified of the problem. The aircraft was directed to assume a holding pattern off the coast until the majority of fuel was consumed. However when the B-52 reached its assigned position, the pilot reported that the leak had worsened and that 37,000 pounds (17,000 kg) of fuel had been lost in three minutes. The aircraft was immediately directed to return and land at the base in Goldsboro.
As it descended through 10,000 feet (3,000 m) on its approach to the airfield, the pilots were no longer able to keep the aircraft in trim and lost control of it. The captain ordered the crew to eject, which they did at 9,000 feet (2,700 m). Five men ejected and landed safely. Another ejected but did not survive the landing, and two died in the crash.[SUP][4][/SUP] The third pilot of the bomber, Lt. Adam Mattocks, is the only man known to have successfully bailed out of the top hatch of a B-52 without an ejection seat.[SUP][5][/SUP][SUP][6][/SUP] The crew last saw the aircraft intact with its payload of two Mark 39 nuclear bombs on board.[SUP][2][/SUP] The wreckage of the aircraft covered a 2-square-mile (5.2 km[SUP]2[/SUP]) area of tobacco and cotton farmland at Faro, about 12 miles north of Goldsboro.[SUP][7][/SUP]
The two nuclear bombs separated from the gyrating aircraft as it broke up between 10,000 and 2,000 feet (3,000 and 610 m). Three of the four arming mechanisms on one of the bombs activated, causing it to execute many of the steps needed to arm itself, such as charging the firing capacitors and, critically, deployment of a 100-foot-diameter (30 m) ****** parachute. The parachute allowed that bomb to hit the ground with little damage.
According to former military analyst Daniel Ellsberg, he saw highly classified documents indicating that the pilot's safe/arm switch was the only one of the six arming devices on the bomb that prevented detonation.[SUP][1][/SUP][SUP][8][/SUP] The Pentagon claims that there was no chance of an explosion and that two arming mechanisms had not activated. A United States Department of Defense spokesperson told United Press International reporter Donald May that the bomb was unarmed and could not explode.[SUP][8][/SUP] Later, however, it was found that both bombs were fully functional and that the pilot's safe/arm switch was indeed all that prevented detonation.[SUP][9][/SUP][SUP][10][/SUP]
The second bomb plunged into a muddy field at around 700 miles per hour (310 m/s) and disintegrated.[SUP][11][/SUP] The tail was discovered about 20 feet (6.1 m) below ground. Parts of the bomb were recovered, including its tritium bottle and the plutonium. However, excavation was abandoned as a result of uncontrollable ground-water flooding. Most of the thermonuclear stage, containing uranium, was left in situ. The Army Corps of Engineers purchased a 400 feet (120 m) circular easement over the buried component.[SUP][12][/SUP] The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill determined the buried depth of the secondary component to be 180 feet (55 m), plus or minus 10 feet (3.0 m).[SUP][13][/SUP]
The commander of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team, Lt. Jack B. ReVelle, speaking to a writer in 2011 of the bomb that had deployed its chute, said: "How close was it to exploding? My opinion is damn close. You might now have a very large Bay of North Carolina if that thing had gone off".[SUP][14][/SUP] He also said the size of each bomb was 3.8 megatons, more than 250 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb, and large enough to have a 100% kill zone of seventeen miles. Each bomb would exceed the yield of all munitions (outside of testing) ever detonated in the history of the world by TNT, gunpowder, conventional bombs, and the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts combined.[SUP][14][/SUP]
In 2013, investigative journalist Eric Schlosser published a book, Command and Control, in which he presented a declassified 1969 document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. In the report, entitled "Goldsboro Revisited," written by Parker F. Jones, a supervisor of nuclear safety at Sandia National Laboratories, Jones says that "one simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe," and concludes that "The MK 39 Mod 2 bomb did not possess adequate safety for the airborne alert role in the B-52."[SUP][15][/SUP] Schlosser writes that "The US government has consistently tried to withhold information from the American people in order to prevent questions being asked about our nuclear weapons policy," he said. "We were told there was no possibility of these weapons accidentally detonating, yet here's one that very nearly did."[SUP][10][/SUP]
1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
