North Carolina nearly nuked.

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A close shave indeed.

Quote:

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.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24183879

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@izzythepush,

Or as Sky-news titled: US 'Almost Blew Up Atomic Bomb Over Itself'

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

This document was written on 22 October 1969 by Parker F Jones, the supervisor of the nuclear weapons safety department at Sandia national laboratories. The document has recently been declassified having been acquired under freedom of information provisions by the investigative reporter Eric Schlosser for his new book Command and Control. It is published here for the first time.

Pages with the document

Quote:

Exclusive: Journalist uses Freedom of Information Act to disclose 1961 accident in which one switch averted catastrophe

Link to yesterday's Guardian report

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Quote:

Millions in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York were at risk.

That had to have been written by a Brit. Where the hell do they think North Carolina is?

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@Setanta,

It's been the headline of a different than quoted by izzy as well as different to the original Guardian report.
(But sky-news did mention North Carolina later, too.)

1 Reply

@Setanta,

What do you expect? Sky News is part owned by Murdoch.

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Similar happened with British nuclear bombs as wel but with less possible damagesl:
- in 1984 in Brüggen/Northrhine-Westphalia (a nuclear warhead which had eight times the explosive power of the US Hiroshima atomic bomb, was damaged in transit when its container slid off a wet trailer as it cornered)
- in 1987 in Strathclyde (Polaris missile on "HMS Repulse")

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

According to document, which Mr Jones named Goldsboro Revisited or: How I learned to Mistrust the H-Bomb, devastation caused by the fallout could have spread over Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and even New York City

Independent

Spiegel mentions cities like Washington, Philadelphia, New York

http://i1334.photobucket.com/albums/w641/Walter_Hinteler/a_zps8f8f7ce4.jpg

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

Quote:

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.

Nonsense as nuclear weapons with special note of hydrogen bombs need everything to work as design within nanoseconds for it to function/detonated.

You can not by any accident get a nuclear explosion the most you could get a convention explosion from the triggering materials and radioactive elements all over the place.

IE a super so call radioactive bomb not a nuclear device.

In theory old fashion gun type trigger uranium atom bombs could go off in an accident but even that is unlikely,

2 Replies

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Nonsense as nuclear weapons with special note of hydrogen bombs need everything to work as design within nanoseconds for it to function/detonated.

You can not by any accident get a nuclear explosion the most you could get a convention explosion from the triggering materials and radioactive elements all over the place.

Obviously you've got better informations than the secret/declassified document shows.

You should get in contact with Eric Schlosser (and others)!

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Nonsense as nuclear weapons with special note of hydrogen bombs need everything to work as design within nanoseconds for it to function/detonated.

What's nonsense is the notion that we should take anything you say seriously when we can have the opinion of experts.

Quote:

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".

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

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@izzythepush,

http://i1334.photobucket.com/albums/w641/Walter_Hinteler/a_zps335a1564.jpg

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@izzythepush,

Sorry it is still nonsense as to get a hydrogen bomb to go off you need to tell the very very complex trigger circuit of the bomb to do it thing such as charging up the capacitors and then setting off the convention explosives in the correct order within nanoseconds time frame.

Not something that can occur in an accident as it must occur under the control of it triggering circuit.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

You certainly are better educated about it, Bill, than the experts at Sandia national laboratories! WOW!!!

2 Replies

@Walter Hinteler,

Sorry but physics is physics and you can not set of such a bomb by any other means then the trigger circuit build into that bomb.

No impact, no fire, or anything on this earth can set off such a bomb but the triggering circuit functioning in that bomb.

2 Replies

@BillRM,

Quote:

Jones found that of the four safety mechanisms in the Faro bomb, designed to prevent unintended detonation, three failed to operate properly. When the bomb hit the ground, a firing signal was sent to the nuclear core of the device, and it was only that final, highly vulnerable switch that averted calamity. "The MK 39 Mod 2 bomb did not possess adequate safety for the airborne alert role in the B-52," Jones concludes.

Source as above, see document for details.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Sorry but physics is physics

And bollocks is bollocks.

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

So let me get this straight the design of this bomb was so bad that the bomb trigger was almost told to function during an accident!!!!!!!!!!!!

Three of four safety devices did not function.................

Lord if true the design engineers should all be shoot as once more the trigger need to be told to function to set off such a bomb and nothing but the correct working of the trigger will set off such a device.

Short of telling the trigger to function nothing on this earth will set of such a bomb so not getting such a bomb to go off in an accident is simple and straight forward just not telling the trigger to function.

Love to be able to read the full report instead of one short sentence over this event as the comment on the side about the bomb breaking apart does not made sense as if the bomb broke apart it could not function either.

They could have been talking about the convention explosives going off and that is far far far far from the full bomb going off.

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@izzythepush,

Quote:

Sky News is part owned by Murdoch.

That covers a multitude of sins.

****************************************

You are aware, aren't you, that Bill is never, ever wrong.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Love to be able to read the full report instead of one short sentence over this event as the comment on the side about the bomb breaking apart does not made sense as if the bomb broke apart it could not function either.

Sorry that you can't open my link.
But since 14 hours, US-media reported it and linked to the document.
Perhaps you try it via one of the US-sites.

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North Carolina nearly nuked.

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