Broken Arrow, Not In Oklahoma

[THE PILGRIM]

Somebody mentioned the B-36 Broken Arrow.
Do lets do a Broken Arrow Thread starting with a B-36.
A Broken Arrow is of course an incident involving a nuclear weapon.
We have had several over the years.
So let's start with the B-36 letting one go right here in Albuquerque.
If you do mess up, this is a good place to do it.
Local Sandia Labs has the folks who can clean up the mess.
I know about several more, including some of the folks involved.
But let it go with the ones you know about.

Albuquerque's Near Doomsday

 

[olcop]

Broken Arrow

There's one near Tybee Island off the Georgia coast near Savannah, Still not found after nearly 50 years----my theory is that some shrimper found it and has it in his boat shed
olcop

 

[mbliss57]

Wow that's incredible. I had no idea about the B-36. Thanks for the article.

 

[ChuckS1]

Jane's dad was responsible.






Extra karma of you get it.

 

[Jessie]

Jane's dad was responsible.






Extra karma of you get it.

As in Janes book of aircraft?

 

[THE PILGRIM]

The Broken Arrow which is probably the scariest is the one near Goldsboro, NC.
A B-52 flying an airborne alert mission broke up in midair.
It was carrying 2- mark 39 thermonuclear Bombs.
One was found hanging by its parachute in a tree.
The other one - well that is another story. It's mostly still there, 180 feet deep. The Corp of Engineers tried to get it but as they bored it just went deeper. All Bombs are shall we say dense, nukes are especially dense. So they will sink into soft ground.
The scary part is these nukes apparently became as least partially armed.
The school solution always was theses nukes won't arm until you guys (aircrews) arm them. But these apparently started the arming cycle as the plane broke up.


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

 

[Abbynormal]

December 8, 1964: Bunker Hill AFB, Peru, Indiana

December 8, 1964: at Bunker Hill Air Force Base, Indiana
A series of errors including an icy runway led to a B-58 that was carrying five nuclear weapons skidding off the taxiway, according to the U.S. National Security Archives website.

The plane, about to take off from Bunker Hill (now Grissom) Air Force Base struck an electrical manhole box and caught fire. One crewman was killed, and portions of all five weapons burned. The contamination released by the damaged nuclear weapons was contained in the immediate area of the crash and immediately disposed of.

The area of the incident was later turned into a Indiana state prision facility. Grow old and glow green!

 

[THE PILGRIM]

December 8, 1964: Bunker Hill AFB, Peru, Indiana

December 8, 1964: at Bunker Hill Air Force Base, Indiana
A series of errors including an icy runway led to a B-58 that was carrying five nuclear weapons skidding off the taxiway, according to the U.S. National Security Archives website.

The plane, about to take off from Bunker Hill (now Grissom) Air Force Base struck an electrical manhole box and caught fire. One crewman was killed, and portions of all five weapons burned. The contamination released by the damaged nuclear weapons was contained in the immediate area of the crash and immediately disposed of.

The area of the incident was later turned into a Indiana state prision facility. Grow old and glow green!

This is the one that I know the most about.
As Elmer used to say, Hell! I was there.

 

[rburg]

You guys are full of good and exact information.

The one I know of (only from reading the article) was the "Flight of Felon 17" down by Blanding Utah. Of course the bombs were recovered. Maybe 30 years ago there were remains of the plane still on site. I don't know why, B52s are made of Aluminum. things like wings would be valuable.

 

[Bob R]

1965 the USS Ticonderoga was steaming about 70 miles off of Okinawa on the way to Yokuska when an A4E with a hydrogen bomb loaded on it rolled off the deck into 16K feet of water. It was never recovered, nor was the pilot. For years it was covered up because of 1.) the ship was enroute to Viet Nam and we werent disclosing whether or not there were nukes in theater and 2.) We told the Japanese time and time again we would not bring nukes into port there. Oops, couldn't let that cat out of the bag could we.

H-Bomb Lost at Sea in '65 Off Okinawa, U.S. Admits - Los Angeles Times

bob

 

[Cyrano]

Not the real thng, fortunatly, but we had an exercise broken arrow at Thule Greenland when I was there. Even with arctic gear and bunny boots, sitting for a couple of hours in a concrete building at -40 got a little chilly.

 

[WuzzFuzz]

BBC News - Palomares bombs: Spain waits for US to finish nuclear clean-up

I was assigned to the JUSMAG/MAG at the time in Madrid, when this one occurred. Took several months to find the one lost in the sea. Then it was quite an ordeal to get it to the surface. Using the ALVIN submersable to get it raised.

I wonder if I'll lose my Top Secret clearance now for even mentioning it. At the time, all of the operations concerning it were Secret.


WuzzFuzz

 

[vigil617]

1965 the USS Ticonderoga was steaming about 70 miles off of Okinawa on the way to Yokuska when an A4E with a hydrogen bomb loaded on it rolled off the deck into 16K feet of water. It was never recovered, nor was the pilot. For years it was covered up because of 1.) the ship was enroute to Viet Nam and we werent disclosing whether or not there were nukes in theater and 2.) We told the Japanese time and time again we would not bring nukes into port there. Oops, couldn't let that cat out of the bag could we.

H-Bomb Lost at Sea in '65 Off Okinawa, U.S. Admits - Los Angeles Times

bob

I'm surprised that an A4 would be carrying a nuke. Guess I always thought only the big strategic bombers carried those. Interesting.

 

[vigil617]

There is a well known Broken Arrow incident that occurred in 1961 near Goldsboro, North Carolina when a B-52 disintegrated in midair.

The Goldsboro Broken Arrow

The State of North Carolina still routinely monitors for radiation the area where one of the H-bombs fell. I had a cousin who had that job for awhile.

This was a really, really close call. I lived about 60 miles from there at the time.

 

[47knuckle]

Mars Bluff, South Carolina - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yes, they dropped one about 25 miles from my home. The conventional explosives made a pretty good crater.

 

[XAVMECH]

Valentine's present

Around midnight on 13 FEB, 1950, we lost a B-36 over Canada's NW coast. It was carrying a Mark IV nuke, on a training mission. For almost four years after, it was believed to have crashed off the coast. Many of the crew bailed out and were rescued. Then the wreckage of the aircraft was found in a remote location in British Columbia's coastal mountain range - about three hours flying time from where it supposedly crashed. What happened to Serial number 44-92075 (a B-36-B) and the nuke that it carried is a great story. For those with an interest in pursuing further, one source is a book authored by Dirk Septer: "Lost Nuke, the last flight of bomber 075". Interesting Canadian perspective, as well. I believe they also made a documentary on this incident that appeared on Canadian TV a year or two ago. Should be available on the Internet (isn't everything?)....

 

[THE PILGRIM]

E

I'm surprised that an A4 would be carrying a nuke. Guess I always thought only the big strategic bombers carried those. Interesting.

The Navy has been in the Nuke biz for a long time with various airplanes.
Our national policy is- we do not confirm or deny the existence of nuclear weapons at any specific location.
That gets to be especially tricky with the carriers. If a carrier is not carrying nukes, and WW lets do it again starts, that boat is as worthless as tits on a boar hog. It's just a big steel target.
Should have stood down in port.

 

[Bat Guano]

Spent some time around the things: B-52s on nuclear alert, Minuteman IIIs, and AIM-4 Genies.

I do know that Genies won't go off if you kick one.

In my dotage the damn things give me the creeps.

 

[Texas Star]

I read about one incident in Spain. May be the one above. It did not endear us to the locals, many of whom are only reluctantly in NATO alliance with the USA.

For those of you who've worked with nukes and also read Ian Fleming's, "Thunderball", how accurate was his description of the bombs stolen by Spectre? This data was not in the movie: you must read the book.

As for the movie, the same book was the basis for the non Broccoli-produced Bond film, "Never Say Never Again", starring Sir Sean Connery, no longer with the Broccoli-Saltzman enterprise. I think it was the better film.

In the book, the traitorous Italian pilot-observer who handed the RAF bomber over to Spectre was knifed in a way that I find improbable, unless perhaps the knife blade was quite a bit longer than on, say, a Fairbairn-Sykes dagger. Fleming owned a First Pattern Fairbairn from his war days and I believe was also sent a Randall Model 2.

Although I sometimes guarded the Nuclear Weapons School at Lowry AFB, CO, the security booth was well out from the building and I never saw a nuke. I was concerned about radiation, so didn't miss them!

 

[THE PILGRIM]

I read about one incident in Spain. May be the one above. It did not endear us to the locals, many of whom are only reluctantly in NATO alliance with the USA.

Several of the B-52 events occurred during 24 hour airborne alert missions.
That includes the Spain accident you just memtioned, the Greenland accident, the NC with one Bomb still there, and the Beale AFB crash where the B-52 ran out of gas.
At one time, SAC actually flew some training and ferry missions with live weapons. The B-47 crash over at Dyess AFB was one of those.
The B-58 at Bunker Hill was actually doing a COCOA Exercise, which was a taxi down the runway from the alert facility.
We are extremely lucky that none of these weapons went off nuclear.
The NC weapons appear to be the closest.
And this is what I think-
This happened back in the good old analog days. Everything was a voltage going down a wire.
Big planes like the B-52 have a huge bus- backbone of wires running all the way front to rear.
As this BUFF started breaking up, the big wire bundle would become twisted and start to rupture. The hot wires would cross feed into other circuits.
Some of this voltage would make its to the nukes and start to arm them.
They had a series of safety devices which must all be switched to fully arm.
Apparently some of them were found in the armed position.