Nuclear weapons falling on North Carolina?

[gitfiddle]

This is going to be a difficult question to ask because I don’t have much information, but that shouldn’t slow dopers down.

A couple of months ago, I was watching a documentary on TV here (in France). I don’t rememeber the exact subject of the documentary, but it had to do with the cold war. One of the stories it told was about, I believe, the cuban missile crisis. It talked about planes taking off all over the US en route to Russia, loaded with nuclear weapons.

I unfortunately was only half paying attention because I was doing other things while I was watching.

Then they started interviewing this guy in North Carolina who was talking one of the planes that had CRASHED in that region. I don’t even know where in NC, but I think it was somewhere in the Appalachians.

When I search for information, all of my searches come to a 1999 speach given by General Lee Butler in Ottawa. You can find the reference in this article.

Anyone know anything about this?

[Earthworm_Jim]

Perhaps you’re thinking of this story, from here

January 24, 1961, Goldsboro, North Carolina

In what nearly became a nuclear catastrophe, a B-52 bomber on airborne alert carrying two nuclear weapons broke apart in midair. The B-52 experienced structural failure in its right wing and the aircraft’s resulting breakup released the two weapons from a height of 2,000-10,000 feet. One of the bomb’s parachutes deployed properly and that weapon’s damage was minimal. However, the second bomb’s parachute malfunctioned and the weapon broke apart upon impact, scattering its components over a wide area. According to Daniel Ellsberg, the weapon could have accidentally fired because “five of the six safety devices had failed.” Nuclear physicist Ralph E. Lapp supported this assertion, saying that “only a single switch” had “prevented the bomb from detonating and spreading fire and destruction over a wide area.”

Despite an extensive search of the waterlogged farmland where the weapon was believed to have landed, the bomb’s highly enriched uranium core was never recovered. In order to prevent any discovery of the lost portion of the weapon, the Air Force purchased an easement which required that permission be obtained before any construction or digging could begin in the area. Three crew members were killed in the crash.

The accident was apparently so serious that it was reported to newly-elected President John F. Kennedy. According to Newsweek, President Kennedy was informed after the accident that “there had been more than 60 accidents involving nuclear weapons” since World War II, “including two cases in which nuclear-tipped anti-aircraft missiles were actually launched by inadvertence.” As a result of the Goldsboro accident, the U.S. placed many new safety devices on its nuclear arsenal and the Soviet Union was encouraged to do the same.

[CynicalGabe]

Wow. So a few terrorists with dosimeters and hiking boots, and a lot of time on their hands, could manage quite a score.

I really hate it when Tom Clancy plots become reality.

[engineer_comp_geek]

You might find this interesting as well:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/09/13/lost.bomb/

This little quote (from the above link) should make you sleep better at night:

The United States lost 11 nuclear bombs in accidents during the Cold War that were never recovered, according to the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

An estimated 50 nuclear warheads, most of them from the former Soviet Union, still lie on the bottom of the world’s oceans, according to the environmental group Greenpeace.

Here’s a site that lists various accidents that have occured over the years:

Center for Defense Information

[engineer_comp_geek]

Whoops, that 2nd link is the same one that Earthworm Jim provided.

[UncleBeer]

According to Daniel Ellsberg . . .

There’s a blast from the past. Damn.

[Chronos]

According to Daniel Ellsberg, the weapon could have accidentally fired because “five of the six safety devices had failed.”

Does this seem awfully peculiar to anyone else? The biggest “safety device” for a nuclear weapon is the fact that it’s pretty darn hard to set one off at all. If any component of bomb fails, that’s going to make it harder or impossible to go off, not easier.

[Polycarp]

Goldsboro is the site of Seymour Johnson AFB (and yes, that pun has already been made, far too many times). And it’s Down East, about 70 miles southeast of us in the Raleigh area, not in the Appalachians.

[Earthworm_Jim]

@Polycarp

Goldsboro is the site of Seymour Johnson AFB (and yes, that pun has already been made, far too many times). And it’s Down East, about 70 miles southeast of us in the Raleigh area, not in the Appalachians.

Don’t I know it - it’s my hometown, which is why I knew about the story to begin with. But the details seems reasonably close to the story the OP had heard. i mean hell, how many nukes could have been lost in NC over the years?

[TwoTrouts]

Then there is always the H-Bomb lost off the Georgia coast near Savannah in 1958. No one has yet been able to find that one.

[TwoTrouts]

@TwoTrouts

Then there is always the H-Bomb lost off the Georgia coast near Savannah in 1958. No one has yet been able to find that one.

:smack: I see that **engineer_comp_geek ** has already referenced that incident!

[picunurse]

Here is a an archive from Stanford and another that looks pretty comprehensive.

[handsomeharry]

Does this seem awfully peculiar to anyone else? The biggest “safety device” for a nuclear weapon is the fact that it’s pretty darn hard to set one off at all. If any component of bomb fails, that’s going to make it harder or impossible to go off, not easier.

I was thinking similar thoughts. Safeties are not the only buffer between peace and nuclear war-they only stop a trigger from being activated at the wrong time. there has to be some kind of stimulus for the ignition before a safety’s failure is even close to relevant. Also, the missing uranium may be called an ad hoc safety device, giving us two, rather than just one.

The physicist also said ‘detonating, and spreading fire and destruction,’ which I take to mean 'the explosion wouldn’t be nuclear, just the high explosives going off, but if I say nothing substantial would happen, nobody would quote me in an article about nukes."