[SpaceBar]

I am extremely skeptical about a decommissioned warhead going off in such circumstances. Arming codes with redundancies, last minute initiator settings, dial-in tritium boosters etc. Just doesn't seem likely that a nuke salvage and abatement team would find themselves in such a situation.

[COEXERJ145]

Yeah, I tend to question this as well. A nuke just don't go BOOM because someone beats on it, kicks it, or worse. Fully armed nuclear weapons have survived impact with the ground when accidentally released from tens of thousands of feet and none every went nuclear.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

"The organization said it was told by unidentified experts who were "knowledgeable about this event" that the accident, in which an unsafe amount of pressure was applied to the warhead, could have caused the device to detonate."

I am extremely skeptical about a decommissioned warhead going off in such circumstances. Arming codes with redundancies, last minute initiator settings, dial-in tritium boosters etc. Just doesn't seem likely that a nuke salvage and abatement team would find themselves in such a situation.

I agree... also there seems to be a security leak...

[MindBender26]

True of some warheads, not true of others.

Davy Crockett was an entirely mechanical system with no safeties other than what you would see on a conventional arty round.... and it was stored VERY near criticality.

It gave off so much heat that in Germany in the winter they were moved from bunker to bunker every few days because the hear would melt the snow off the bunker roof and thereby let the bad guys know where they were being stored!

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I am extremely skeptical about a decommissioned warhead going off in such circumstances.

I share your skepticism. Making a nuclear weapon denotate is one of those things that's incredibly difficult to make happen and incredibly easy to prevent. Simply removing the power sources to the initiator charges would probably preclude any chance of a nuclear explosion. From there on, there's lots of opportunities to create a mess with radioactive materials but essentially zero chance of a nuclear detonation.