Oops. (Nearly).

[pie-eater 207]

A secret document, published in declassified form for the first time by the Guardian today, reveals that the US Air Force came dramatically close to detonating an atom bomb over North Carolina that would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that devastated Hiroshima.

 

 

The document, obtained by the investigative journalist Eric Schlosser under the Freedom of Information Act, gives the first conclusive evidence that the US was narrowly spared a disaster of monumental proportions when two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over Goldsboro, North Carolina on 23 January 1961. The bombs fell to earth after a B-52 bomber broke up in mid-air, and one of the devices behaved precisely as a nuclear weapon was designed to behave in warfare: its parachute opened, its trigger mechanisms engaged, and only one low-voltage switch prevented untold carnage.

 

 

Each bomb carried a payload of 4 megatons – the equivalent of 4 million tons of TNT explosive. Had the device detonated, lethal fallout could have been deposited over Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and as far north as New York city – putting millions of lives at risk.

 

 

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".

 

:eek:

 

Writing eight years after the accident, Parker F Jones found that the bombs that dropped over North Carolina, just three days after John F Kennedy made his inaugural address as president, were inadequate in their safety controls and that the final switch that prevented disaster could easily have been shorted by an electrical jolt, leading to a nuclear burst. "It would have been bad news – in spades," he wrote.

 

[Metabo Oyaji 71]

Had the device detonated, lethal fallout could have been deposited over Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and as far north as New York city – putting millions of lives at risk.

 

On the bright side, no major ski areas would have been affected.

[NoFakie 45]

On the Soviet side, I think they went very close to hitting the launch-em-all button when one of their satellites detected some clouds as incoming missiles.

I can't really remember the story, but I think it was late on, so Bhreznev-Andropov-Gorby time.

Having seen Doctor Strangelove, it had a "reality copying fiction" ring about it.

[surfarthur 22]

I wonder if it had detonated, would it all have been blamed on the soviets, and would the US government have waged a nuclear war with the soviets, rather than admit that they stuffed up?

[nagpants 1]

Boggles the mind thinking about if that had actually happened.

[gozaimaas 61]

I wonder if it had detonated, would it all have been blamed on the soviets, and would the US government have waged a nuclear war with the soviets, rather than admit that they stuffed up?

For sure

[Tubby Beaver 209]

I doubt it....I reckon perhaps the Cubans would've got the blame, nuked or chemically attacked, then back door diplomacy with the Soviets to ensure further nukes weren't loosed.

 

The Cubans would've been more expendable than the Soviets, as the US would've known that the minute a US nuke was detected on its way to USSR, then their's would also be released toward the US.

 

It sure would've made the middle east a safer place to live in 1990-2013!!

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