Damm!  How many of you guy knew this?

[b]US admits losing nuke[/b]

August 12, 2001


more...
[url]http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,2566427%255E401,00.html[/url]

I'm sure it's not the only one lost.  I'm sure Russia has a few lost too.  [:D]

Well the FBI can lose 456 fully automatic weapons; and not care.  So why should they care about a couple of thermonuclear devices either?

I'd hate to be the treasure hunter in 3020 who finds it.

Yea some poor farmer is gonna be plowing one of his fields somewhere, and take the turn on the corner of one of his fields just a little too wide and get the absolute surprise of his life.  Not to mention that all people living within a fifty mile radius of his farm are gonna get the surprise of their lives too.

Several have been in air crashes. A couple even exploded their triggers, the TNT used to implode the two sub-critical masses in certain types of nukes.

Then there is the huge MUF (materials unaccounted for) at Savannah River in 1969.  Rumor has it that the Mossad ran an operation against Savannah and that is where the materials came from to build Israeli nukes.

These things are going to break, corrode, rust through decompose, etc.  No way is one ever going to go off in an atomic reaction.  The TNT may go off chemically and that would be one heck of a surprise, and the radioactive material will still be radioactive for a good long while.  There are so many safeties and interconnects in these bombs, I always thought it would be a miracle to get one to go off if it was [i]supposed[/i] to.

They are electronically detonated, not an impact fuse like a regular bomb.  Electronics break when they hit the ground.

Ex B-52 driver,
Norm

[url]http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa050700c.htm[/url]
The following are just a few excerpts from Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940. (Parts of this book can be viewed online at: The Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project.)

Total cost of the Manhattan project: (through August 1945)
$20 billion dollars

Total number of U.S. nuclear warheads and bombs built between 1945 and 1990:
More than 70,000 of 65 types

Number remaining in U.S. stockpile as of 1997:
12,500 (8,750 active, 2,500 contingency stockpile, 1,250 awaiting disassembly)

Number of nuclear warheads requested by the U.S. Army in 1956 and 1957:
151,000

Amount of plutonium remaining in U.S. nuclear weapons:
43  Metric tons

Number of thermometers which could be filled with mercury used to produce lithium-6 at the Oak Ridge Reservation:
11 billion

Number of dismantled plutonium "pits" stored at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas:
12,067 (as of May 6, 1999)

States with the largest number of nuclear weapons:
New Mexico (2,450), Georgia (2,000), Washington (1,685), Nevada (1,350), and North Dakota (1,140)

Money paid by the U.S. State Department to Japan following fallout from the 1954 "Bravo" test:
$15,300,000

Money paid to U.S. citizens under the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act of 1990, as of January 13, 1998:
Approximately $225 million dollars (6,336 claims approved; 3,156 denied)

Total cost of the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program, 1946-1961: (To design a nuclear-powered aircraft.)
$7 billion dollars

Total number of nuclear powered aircraft and hangers ever built:
0 and 1

First and last U.S. nuclear weapons tests:
July 16, 1945 ("Trinity") and September 23, 1992 ("Divider")

Estimated amount spent between October 1, 1992 and October 1, 1995 on nuclear testing activities:
$1.2 billon dollars to conduct 0 tests

Number of U.S. nuclear tests in Nevada:
911

Number of U.S. nuclear bombs lost in accidents and never recovered:
11

For many more amazing facts about the U.S. nuclear weapons program, see 50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons, by the Brookings Institute.

DoD Directive 5230.16 goes on to clearly define a "Nuclear Weapon Accident," as follows:

NUCLEAR WEAPON ACCIDENT

An unexpected event involving nuclear weapons or nuclear components that results in any of the following:

Accidental or unauthorized launching, firing, or use by U.S. forces or U.S. supported Allied forces of a nuclear-capable weapons system.
An accidental, unauthorized or unexplained nuclear detonation.
Non-nuclear detonation or burning of a nuclear weapon or nuclear component.
Radioactive contamination.
Jettisoning of a nuclear weapon or nuclear component.
Public hazard, actual or perceived.
As a tool for indicating the severity of a nuclear weapons accident, DoD officials are provided the following codeword key to be used only in internal communications: (Listed in order of most to least serious.)

Broken Arrow
"A Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff term to identify and report an accident involving a nuclear weapon or warhead or nuclear component." (Broken Arrow is the worst case scenario.)

Bent Spear
"A Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff term used in the Department of Defense to identify and report a nuclear weapon significant incident involving a nuclear weapon or warhead, nuclear components, or vehicle when nuclear loaded."

Empty Quiver
"A reporting term to identify and report the seizure, theft, or loss of a U.S. nuclear weapon."

Faded Giant
"A reporting term to identify an event involving a nuclear reactor or radiological accident."
A couple of our Broken Arrows

Palomares, Spain - 1966
The most serious reported accident in the U.S. Military's nuclear history took place in Palomares, Spain on Jan. 17, 1966 when a B-52 loaded with four nuclear bombs suffered a mid-air collision with a KC-135 refueling plane. All four bombs were ejected from the B-52 in the crash. One was recovered on the ground and a second from the sea after a long and difficult search. However, the high explosive packages of the other two bombs detonated on impact with the ground. While the nuclear payloads of the bombs did not detonate, over 1,400 tons of surrounding soil and vegetation were contaminated with radioactive materials. The US conducted an extensive cleanup of the area under the scrutiny of the Spanish government.

Lakenheath Air Base, Suffolk, England - 1956
On July 27, 1956, A B-47 bomber crashed at Lakenheath Airbase in Suffolk, England. While the bomber carried no nuclear weapons, it hit a concrete nuclear weapons storage bunker known as the "igloo," where three U.S. Mark VI nuclear bombs -- the same type of bomb dropped on Nagasaki -- were stored. In the collision, three of the bombs sustained damage that could have resulted in detonation. In explaining the accident, Gen. James Walsh, commanding officer of the U.S. 7th Air Division in England, sent a brief cable to Gen. Curtis LeMay, commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Command. "Aircraft then exploded, showering burning fuel over all. Crew perished. ... Preliminary exam by bomb disposal officer says a miracle that one Mark Six with exposed detonators sheared didn't go."

i belive their was an incedent over spain once, sevral were lost and at least ones trigger went off, it may have even killed someone. it was a mess.

Most of us already knew this.  This is the same one that Garand_shooter mentioned


This is not news.  At this very moment, I am sitting about 10k from the one in the story.  It is right off Tybee Island.  There was some talk of trying to recover it last year but that fizzled out.  I am not worried, the thing will not go nuke accidentally.............Damn, what's that loud noi...........................

There's a good book about the Spanish incident and the recovery exerxcise. IIRC, it's called "The bombs of Palomares"

Were you at Westover A.F.B. 1962-64?

I found one while sailing, I would be happy to sell it back to the governmnet, if they can come up with my price.

Relating to the Palomares incident. For those who don´t know. It is where Carl Brashear(Men Of Honor movie was made after him) lost his leg when they were lifting the bomb on a ship.

Heard about this many years ago while attending nuc school.  Big damn bomb.
Actually, this is one of three thermonuclear bombs that the Air Force lost in that general area in a relatively short period of time.  The other two dropped out of B-52 that had been on airborne alert.  The airplane was about to crash and breaking up when the two bombs tumbled out of the bomb bay into a farmer's field near Goldsboro, North Carolina.  One bomb fell to earth, bored a hole deep in the moist soil at high speed and broke up into several pieces.  Most of this bomb was [reportedly] recovered but the nuclear core was not.  The story of the other one is a bit scarier.  Upon investigation, it was revealed that the most of the weapon safeties had failed and that the weapon had almost completed the arming process and detonated...that is, the speed retarding parachute deployed, the battery power supply energized, the radar altimeter came up on line and the fuzing sequence was completed...except for one key safety.  Very fortunately, this one action rendered the bomb non-functional (As designed.).  Just because that one final safety switch in the plane was still in the safe position at drop...the weapon did not detonate.  Since this weapon was a multi-megaton bomb...it would have wiped out a huge area along the eastern seaboard had it exploded.
After several unsuccessfully attempts to recover the second bomb core from the wet, sandy soil, the Air Force/NEST team gave up and decided to just fill in the hole with concrete, entombing the bomb forever.  The government then 'bought' the land from the farmer by eminent domain and declared the site federal property.  The farmer got a fat check (Reportedly a cool million dollars-to keep his mouth shut.) and everybody went home satisfied.  Where that farmer's field once was is now a small plot of federal land, surrounded by a barbed wire-topped chain link fence, with appropriate signs attached all around the perimeter warning potential trespassers to keep out.  At the center of the empty lot is a low, circular, monolithic concrete  hardstand several feet in diameter, with a flag pole directly in the middle.  That concrete reportedly goes way down into the soil.  I wonder if the locals have a clue as to what is buried under that concrete?
Here is a picture of that big bomb:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Usa/Weapons/Mk15.jpg

Shiiiit, guess the government doesn't know how to keep a secret.

Nah.  Flew G-models out of Griffiss in NY.  '72 - '78.  A few TDYs to Guam & Minot.

Norm

Probably a bigger threat is from unexploded conventional bombs and mines from all the prior wars.