US plane in 1961 'nuclear bomb near-miss'

BBC News ^ | 21st September 2013

[Mr Radical]

A four-megaton nuclear bomb was one switch away from exploding over the US in 1961, a newly declassified US document confirms.

Two bombs were on board a B-52 plane that went into an uncontrolled spin over North Carolina - both bombs fell and one began the detonation process.

The document was first published in the UK's Guardian newspaper. The US government has acknowledged the accident before, but never made public how close the bomb came to detonating. The document was obtained by journalist Eric Schlosser under the Freedom of Information Act.

The plane was on a routine flight when it began to break up over North Carolina on 23 January 1961...

[FreedomStar3028]

It’s funny a lot of strange things happened that prevented nuclear war. Miracles I think.

[cynwoody]

Much ado about the pilot's armed/safe switch.

Which, fortunately for North Carolina, was on "safe" when the crash happened.

You see, the way it works was:

• Bomb drops, parachute automatically deploys in order to let the bomber crew escape while the gadget descends to the optimal altitude for city erasure.
• Bomb gets ready to go off. Capacitors are charged to be ready to detonate the shaped charges around the plutonium core and compress it to a supercritical configuration.
• Radar altimeter determines bomb has reached optimal altitude, so DETONATE!
• Pilot's armed/safe switch is on "safe". So NOTHING HAPPENS. Bomb descends, chute gets caught in tree. Bomb is recovered. Classified report is written.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash

[Southack]

The inauguration of John F. Kennedy as the 35th President of the United States was held on January 20, 1961.

This near-detonation was 2.5 days into Office.

[cynwoody]

The inauguration of John F. Kennedy as the 35th President of the United States was held on January 20, 1961.

Good thing the pilot hadn't thrown that switch.

Or Jack would have had much 'splainin' to do!

[cynwoody]

It’s funny a lot of strange things happened that prevented nuclear war. Miracles I think.

Nah. Just a switch. SPST, SPDT, whatever.

Of course, admittedly, given the stakes, it should have been a very robust switch! (not that it wasn't).

But, even if it had failed, and the bomb had gone off, there would not have been a nuclear war.

It would have been obvious, even to Jack (D-MA), that no attack was in progress, but, rather, that one B-52, one Air Force Base, and a large number of South Carolinians were gone. But nothing else. The requisite reports from the DEW Line of the invading armada of Soviet bombers would have been absent. So, Jack would have left the football in the hands of the Marine, and WW III would not have happened.

(Would have loved to be the fly on the wall at the Kremlin when Niki got the news, however).

[Zakeet]

The US government has acknowledged the accident before, but never made public how close the bomb came to detonating ...

... except to Wikipedia (see the last paragraph in the history section).

[cynwoody]

.. except to Wikipedia (see the last paragraph in the history section).

The interesting part of your link is that only one of the bombs landed basically undamaged. If the hardware had been up to snuff, both bombs should have parachuted to ground without going off and basically intact.

But the second bomb impacted hard and ended up basically an earth penetrator, albeit unarmed (are you listening, Iran?).

[fso301]

These type incidents also highlight why such a large number of nuclear weapons are needed. Had it been a real war, the bomb may have been a dud.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Who’s got the Slim Pickens picture riding the bomb in Dr Strangelove?

[cynwoody]

Who’s got the Slim Pickens picture riding the bomb in Dr Strangelove?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snTaSJk0n_Y

[Conspiracy Guy]

That photo must be a part of the movie set. I’ve never seen this shot before.

[cynwoody]

That photo must be a part of the movie set.

I would say so.

At least the video is hilarious, if fatally fakey by modern production standards.

[FreedomStar3028]

I’m not talking just about that incident, there were many incidents. False ICBM signals, communications failure, etc. During the Cold War.

[urbanpovertylawcenter]

DR. Strangelove-—perhaps the best movie of all time.

A Stanley K. and Peter Sellers masterpiece!

[Conspiracy Guy]

The special effects weren’t very special. But I love the movie. Peter Sellers did a great job. As was usually the case he stayed off script half the time. George C Scott did a good job also. But Slim reading off the contents of the survival package then saying paraphrase,... Hell a feller could have a pretty good time in Vegas with this stuff ... priceless.

[naturalman1975]

In it, he comments on and corrects Lapp's narrative of the accident, including listing that three out of the four fail safe mechanisms failed

Seems to me that that is why there were four fail safe mechanisms. Three failed, one worked, no detonation.

That's why you build redundancies into fail safe systems.

"One simple dynamo-technology low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe."

And you want at least one of your safeties to be simple technology - because simple technologies are often the ones that work when the advanced technology fails.

[Farnsworth]

yippee ki yay Mister Falcon

[Gen.Blather]

The Left was infuriated that Reagan was the president who most significantly reduced the US arsenal of nuclear weapons. I think he disassembled 30,000 of them. He invited the Russians to witness the disassembly and he provided money so that they could follow suit. (As I recall, they did.) But, I’m certain what he mostly got rid of were dinosaurs like the one in your picture. These bombs could only be delivered by huge bombers, none of which could by Reagan’s day have penetrated all the way to their targets in the Soviet Union. They were like having an arsenal full of harquebuses (or, blunderbusses, if you prefer to go more modern.)

[cynwoody]

I’m not talking just about that incident, there were many incidents. False ICBM signals, communications failure, etc. During the Cold War.

True.

But the current story shows that Schlosser knows more about fast food than he knows about nukes.

IOW, move along folks! Nothing to see here!