5 times we almost nuked ourselves by accident

[kpete]

5 times we almost nuked ourselves by accident

5 times we almost nuked ourselves by accident We spent the Cold War in perpetual fear that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. would start an intentional nuclear conflict. The truth is, we came far closer to blowing ourselves up with nuclear weapons than we ever came to WWIII.

Nuclear incidents have a bunch of ominous military code names, like Broken Arrow, Faded Giant or NUCFLASH. There are actually dozens of instances like these, but here are five major ones that happened in the U.S. If we were to consider Soviet activity, the list could go on for hours. The Russians either lost a nuclear sub, lost a sub with nuclear weapons on board, had a nuclear sub's reactor melt down, or all three roughly every other week. Kompetentnyh? Nyet.

Travis Air Force Base, 1950 — Broken Arrow

During the Korean War, U.S. military and political officials gave serious consideration to the use of atomic weapons. In August of 1950, ten B-29 Superfortress bombers took off from what was then called Fairfield-Suisun Air Force Base in California, headed for Guam. Each was carrying a Mark IV atom bomb, which was about twice as powerful as the bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II.



Shortly after takeoff, one of the B-29s had engine trouble. On board was General Robert Travis. He commanded the plane to turn back to the base when the landing gear refused to retract. Sensing the plane was going down, the pilot tried to avoid some base housing before crashing at the northwest corner of the base. The initial impact killed 12 of the 20 people aboard, including General Travis. The resulting fire eventually detonated the 5,000 pounds of conventional explosives that were part of the Mark IV. That massive explosion killed seven people on the ground. Had the bomb been armed with its fissile capsule, the immediate death toll may have reached six figures.

The Air Force covered up the incident, blaming it on conventional bombs loaded for a training flight. The base was renamed for General Travis just a few months later. The term Broken Arrow refers to nuclear incidents which are not likely to start a nuclear war.

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more (cool pics too):
http://io9.com/5664390/5-times-we-almost-nuked-ourselves-by-accident

[RedCloud]

1. Nothing comforts like having wingnuts in charge of big bombs.