Posted on 11/11/2008 8:55:24 AM PST by austrian
The United States abandoned a nuclear weapon beneath the ice in northern Greenland following a crash in 1968, a BBC investigation has found.
Its unique vantage point - perched at the top of the world - has meant that Thule Air Base has been of immense strategic importance to the US since it was built in the early 1950s, allowing a radar to scan the skies for missiles coming over the North Pole.
The Pentagon believed the Soviet Union would take out the base as a prelude to a nuclear strike against the US and so in 1960 began flying "Chrome Dome" missions. Nuclear-armed B52 bombers continuously circled over Thule - and could head straight to Moscow if they witnessed its destruction.
Greenland is a self-governing province of Denmark but the carrying of nuclear weapons over Danish territory was kept secret.
'Darker story'
But on 21 January 1968, one of those missions went wrong. We reunited two of the pilots, John Haug and Joe D'Amario, 40 years on to tell the story of how their plane ended up crashing on the ice a few miles out from the base.
In the aftermath, military personnel, local Greenlanders and Danish workers rushed to the scene to help.
Eventually, a remarkable operation would unfold over the coming months to recover thousands of tiny pieces of debris scattered across the frozen bay, as well as to collect some 500 million gallons of ice, some of it containing radioactive debris.
A declassified US government video, obtained by the BBC, documents the clear-up and gives some ideas of the scale of the operation. The high explosives surrounding the four nuclear weapons had detonated but without setting off the actual nuclear devices, which had not been armed by the crew....
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
No wonder the ice cap is melting!............
LOL
That was one damn expensive dud.. thank God.
Big deal—There are two nukes in the ocean a few hundred miles SE of New Jersey . Dumpedin the 50’s by a plane in trouble . Never found .
Big whoop.
There’s another off the coast near Savannah.
The weapons are DESIGNED NOT TO DETONATE unless a very specific set of instruments are engaged and the bombs do not and WILL NOT detonate on simple impact.
PERIOD.
Everybody relax.
All together now...
Well, there goes my excuse to post the ONOS!! graphic.
Do you know what a "one point det" is ?
If I find it, can I keep it?
All together now...BUSH’S FAULT!
One off the coast of Georgia too.
I saw the (Discovery channel, perhaps Nat’l Geo?) documentary on those guys who pulled that Lightning out of the ice. OMG, ton of work, incredible.
Maybe...I am confusing that with a similar effort (adn similar documentary) to rescue a B-29 from the ice, obviously a considerably larger effort. The poor guys who worked on that for years ultimately got it out, rebuilt it, fired it up, and IIRC a loose toolbox shifted during an early taxi run, ruptured a fuel line, and the whole thing went up in flames. It was utterly heartbreaking.
Ask this guy where it is. He's probably shooting bottle rockets at it.
Why do I have a metal picture of a bunch of Al-Queda nutjobs on dogsleds trying to figure out how to steer?
and that, my FRiend, is a P-38 Lightning
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