The Costa del Armageddon: How the US dropped H-bombs on a beach in Spain
Monday, January 17, 1966, will forever be a day of embarrassment for the US Air Force, and one of infamy for the village of Palomares on Spain’s Andalucian coast.
It was on that day that a giant B-52 bomber from the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, North Carolina, was completing a 24-hour global patrol at the height of the Cold War.
Nestling in the bomb bay was a deadly cargo: four 1.5 megaton Mark 28 thermonuclear hydrogen bombs, each about 70 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima.
On the last leg of the flight towards home, during refuelling at 31,000ft with a KC-135 tanker, disaster struck. An official investigation later concluded that the B-52 overran in manoeuvres to hook up with the trailing fuel boom and rammed the tanker.
There was an explosion and a huge fireball engulfed both aircraft. All four men on the tanker and three of the bomber’s crew died instantly. Four others managed to eject before plunging into the sea where they were rescued by Spanish fishermen.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2625023/The-Costa-del-Armageddon-How-US-dropped-H-bombs-beach-Spain-turned-hundreds-British-expats-caught-deadly-nuclear-fall-zone.html#ixzz31Oj2ylfb
= new reply since forum marked as read
