USAF nearly detonated atomic bomb over North Carolina – secret document

[kpete]

USAF nearly detonated atomic bomb over North Carolina – secret document
Exclusive: Journalist uses Freedom of Information Act to disclose 1961 accident in which one switch averted catastrophe

A secret document, published in declassified form for the first time by the Guardian today, reveals that the US Air Force came dramatically close to detonating an atom bomb over North Carolina that would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that devastated Hiroshima.

...................

Each bomb carried a payload of 4 megatons – the equivalent of 4 million tons of TNT explosive. Had the device detonated, lethal fallout could have been deposited over Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and as far north as New York city – putting millions of lives at risk.

Though there has been persistent speculation about how narrow the Goldsboro escape was, the US government has repeatedly publicly denied that its nuclear arsenal has ever put Americans' lives in jeopardy through safety flaws. But in the newly-published document, a senior engineer in the Sandia national laboratories responsible for the mechanical safety of nuclear weapons concludes that "one simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe".

Writing eight years after the accident, Parker F Jones found that the bombs that dropped over North Carolina, just three days after John F Kennedy made his inaugural address as president, were inadequate in their safety controls and that the final switch that prevented disaster could easily have been shorted by an electrical jolt, leading to a nuclear burst. "It would have been bad news – in spades," he wrote.

the rest:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/20/usaf-atomic-bomb-north-carolina-1961

[gopiscrap]

1. yikes

[Blue_Tires]

4. actually, this is only one of hundreds of potential incidents from the 50s and 60s

There were quite a few crashes of aircraft with live nukes aboard...

[gopiscrap]

5. yeah I've heard that before

and folks wonder why people protest against these sites that hold the weapons?

[MuseRider]

2. Good Lord.

They don't think we can handle any information do they? Or maybe, just maybe (channeling Louis CK) they know we would have put a stop to this if we knew.

Growing up during that time I was taught about how good we were, how wonderful we were. We were told the bad parts of the past, some of them, and shown our warts from the past, some of them. We were also given much much more information then that we are now about what was happening. Still, we should have known about this. Too many people trust the government without question. It has always been this way and this is what you get when you don't press for the truth. I think it is way too late now to change this.

It was a scary time but we should have known about this. Whose country is it? Oh yea, I forgot.

[deutsey]

3. How the U.S. Narrowly Avoided a Nuclear Holocaust 33 Years Ago

and Still Risks Catastrophe Today

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/9/18/how_the_us_narrowly_avoided_a

Thirty-three years ago to the day, the United States narrowly missed a nuclear holocaust on its soil.

The so-called "Damascus Accident" involved a Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile mishap at a launch complex outside Damascus, Arkansas. During a routine maintenance procedure, a young worker accidentally dropped a nine-pound tool in the silo, piercing the missile’s skin and causing a major leak of flammable rocket fuel. Sitting on top of that Titan 2 was the most powerful thermonuclear warhead ever deployed on an American missile. The weapon was about 600 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

For the next nine hours, a group of airmen put themselves at grave risk to save the missile and prevent a massive explosion that would’ve caused incalculable damage.

The story is detailed in Eric Schlosser’s new book, "Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety," which explores how often the United States has come within a hair’s breadth of a domestic nuclear detonation or an accidental war. Drawing on thousands of pages of recently declassified government documents and interviews with scores of military personnel and nuclear scientists, Schlosser shows that America’s nuclear weapons pose a grave risk to humankind.