When the US lost two nukes, and one nearly went off

Back in '61, the cold war was going strong, and the US had bombers in the air armed with nukes just in case the Soviet Union launched an attack:

[h=1]A thermonuclear bomb slammed into a North Carolina farm in 1961 — and part of it is still missing[/h]

The military studied the bombs and learned that six of seven steps to blow up one of them had engaged, according to The Register. Only one trigger stopped a blast — that switch was set to "ARM" yet somehow failed to detonate the bomb.
It was only "by the slightest margin of chance, literally the failure of two wires to cross, a nuclear explosion was averted," a declassified 1963 memo described Robert McNamara, the secretary of defense at the time, as saying.

Click to expand...

The US dodged a bullet that time, quite literally. I wonder if we'll ever actually shoot our own foot, figuratively that is, with a nuke?

Fallout pattern:

There was also the incident at the silo complex in Damascus Arkansas, 1980. A work crew dropped a large socket that fell 70 feet down the silo ricocheted off the blast ring and struck the missile fuel tank puncturing it. It eventually blew up, blasting the concrete lid in car and bus sized pieces and sending them all over the facility. The story was broadcast on GPB last weekend and I sat in the driveway listening to the last half hour. The stories from the mouths of the survivors was riveting.
An incredible story of tiny errors and bad luck followed by some poor decision making came close to an epic disaster. The warhead was found, intact, 1/4 mile from the silo. There is also a PBS documentary. It is quite the bit of not well known US military history.
It left me wondering if some of the officers we have in charge now would have made the same poor decisions.

The documentary is called, Command and Control.

The one that blows my mind is more recent. About 10 years ago a whole mess of idiots managed to forget about live nuke warheads on a B-52 and flew them from Minot to Barksdale. I can't even begin to tell you how tight nuke security was back in the day so that fact that so many people failed to do their job on that trip is, and should be, totally unbelievable.

Lutherf said:

The one that blows my mind is more recent. About 10 years ago a whole mess of idiots managed to forget about live nuke warheads on a B-52 and flew them from Minot to Barksdale. I can't even begin to tell you how tight nuke security was back in the day so that fact that so many people failed to do their job on that trip is, and should be, totally unbelievable.

Click to expand...

I remember that. As a submariner and schooled in the care and feeding of nuclear weapons, I wondered, WTF!!! How can this happen? That many failures in the chain does this require??
The really scary part. Some of those involved could be Generals now.

trblmkr said:

I remember that. As a submariner and schooled in the care and feeding of nuclear weapons, I wondered, WTF!!! How can this happen? That many failures in the chain does this require??
The really scary part. Some of those involved could be Generals now.

Click to expand...

I can't imagine that anyone involved wasn't booted, much less promoted.

Here's another:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid-air_collision

Lost nuke...

trblmkr said:

I remember that. As a submariner and schooled in the care and feeding of nuclear weapons, I wondered, WTF!!! How can this happen? That many failures in the chain does this require??
The really scary part. Some of those involved could be Generals now.

Click to expand...

I can only speculate, then and now, but rumor had it at the time that one of those involved was VP at the time.

Lutherf said:

The one that blows my mind is more recent. About 10 years ago a whole mess of idiots managed to forget about live nuke warheads on a B-52 and flew them from Minot to Barksdale. I can't even begin to tell you how tight nuke security was back in the day so that fact that so many people failed to do their job on that trip is, and should be, totally unbelievable.

Click to expand...

I would imagine a lot has to do with the fact that nukes today actually being loaded onto aircraft is a fairly rare event. The same with moving nukes around by various other ways, like barges and trains.

Into the early 1990's, we were doing things like that all the time. But with the end of the Cold War, such things are now rarely done. And with a lack of actual hands on performing of this kind of duty, things get forgotten and left.

Now for the actual incident which was in August 2007, the missiles involved were 6 of the ACM-129 Advanced Cruise Missiles. These were purely nuclear missiles, and were to be retired in 2012 to comply with the 2002 SORT treaty. 2 pods of 6 missiles were pulled from storage, and sent from Minot to Barksdale for disposal. In preparation for the flight, the nuclear warheads were supposed to have been removed and replaced with training warheads. This was not done essentially because the crew that pulled them from storage grabbed 2 different missile pods.

And over the next 36 hours, 2 different crews failed to properly inspect the missiles. The mistake was only noticed when the ordinance crew at Barksdale arrived to move the missiles to the disposal holding area and realized that they were actually live nukes. Around 10 senior and flag officers were reprimanded and forced into retirement over that, and the entire ordinance crew at Minot was stripped of their ability to handle nuclear weapons.

But after so long out of the Cold War, it is no surprise to me that such skills has eroded. It had been roughly 14 years since we had 24 hour operational nukes in the air, so only the more senior individuals would have even had a chance to do so in anything other than a training scenario.

trblmkr said:

There was also the incident at the silo complex in Damascus Arkansas, 1980. A work crew dropped a large socket that fell 70 feet down the silo ricocheted off the blast ring and struck the missile fuel tank puncturing it. It eventually blew up, blasting the concrete lid in car and bus sized pieces and sending them all over the facility. The story was broadcast on GPB last weekend and I sat in the driveway listening to the last half hour. The stories from the mouths of the survivors was riveting.
An incredible story of tiny errors and bad luck followed by some poor decision making came close to an epic disaster. The warhead was found, intact, 1/4 mile from the silo. There is also a PBS documentary. It is quite the bit of not well known US military history.
It left me wondering if some of the officers we have in charge now would have made the same poor decisions.

The documentary is called, Command and Control.

Click to expand...

I heard that one as a podcast. Frightening.

trblmkr said:

I remember that. As a submariner and schooled in the care and feeding of nuclear weapons, I wondered, WTF!!! How can this happen? That many failures in the chain does this require??
The really scary part. Some of those involved could be Generals now.

Click to expand...

And yet people believe we are competent enough to secretly run the world and pull of 9/11.

cpwill said:

And yet people believe we are competent enough to secretly run the world and pull of 9/11.

Click to expand...

What's funnier is that SOME still believe 19 arabs with box cutters, being controlled by a dialysis patient living in a cave in Afghanistan, pulled off 911. :lamo

When I was in college I was wandering around the upper floors if the main library looking at some of the books. I ran across one with the title "The Day They Lost the H-Bomb" about a collision between a B-52 and a KC-135 just off the coast of Spain in the late 60s. Real interesting read about the search for and eventual recovery of all of the nuclear weapons that were scattered by the collision. Some really scary stuff.

Thoreau72 said:

What's funnier is that SOME still believe 19 arabs with box cutters, being controlled by a dialysis patient living in a cave in Afghanistan, pulled off 911. :lamo

Click to expand...

or that the federal government has the ability to pull off a faked attack on American soil and make people believe it.

cpwill said:

And yet people believe we are competent enough to secretly run the world and pull of 9/11.

Click to expand...

Yes, Clinton couldn't even keep the whereabouts of his penis a secret. The idea of the government being able to concoct a byzantine plot involving hundreds of conspirators and keeping it a secret is ludicrous.

Definitely one of the closest calls in US history.

Dittohead not! said:

or that the federal government has the ability to pull off a faked attack on American soil and make people believe it.

Click to expand...

The attack itself was not faked. The only thing faked were the identities of the perpetrators of the attacks, and of course for explanations, the laws of physics were suspended for a day. But some believe!

zyzygy said:

Yes, Clinton couldn't even keep the whereabouts of his penis a secret. The idea of the government being able to concoct a byzantine plot involving hundreds of conspirators and keeping it a secret is ludicrous.

Click to expand...

Heck, we had an incident 45 years ago over a little burglary in which nobody was hurt. Nobody died.

Yet the #3 man in the FBI went to the press with evidence that brought down an administration.

But as typical, the CT'ers are unable to keep such nonsense into the proper area, and insist on trying to spread their mental illness among others.

Barksdale is a pretty tightly run ship IMO; not surprised the crews there discovered the mistake of the Minot crews

Thoreau72 said:

What's funnier is that SOME still believe 19 arabs with box cutters, being controlled by a dialysis patient living in a cave in Afghanistan, pulled off 911. :lamo

Click to expand...

You know that you misrepresent the situation... Right? You are essentially lying.

Thoreau72 said:

The attack itself was not faked. The only thing faked were the identities of the perpetrators of the attacks, and of course for explanations, the laws of physics were suspended for a day. But some believe!

Click to expand...

Time to first lie.... Second sentence.

Fledermaus said:

You know that you misrepresent the situation... Right? You are essentially lying.

Click to expand...

Not true Maus---I know many who still believe the official story, complete with impossible cell phone calls and box cutters. Plenty, even here at DP. :mrgreen:

Thoreau72 said:

Not true Maus---I know many who still believe the official story, complete with impossible cell phone calls and box cutters. Plenty, even here at DP. :mrgreen:

Click to expand...

There were boxcutters... Along with various other knives. LIE OF OMISSION perhaps.

As far as "impossible cell phone calls"... What say you about the AIRPHONE calls that made up the majority of the connected calls? And the cell phone calls that did connect were made at LOWER ALTITUDE.

If the "Official story" is so flawed why must you lie about it constantly?