the fuck?
SAVANNAH, Ga. – The first government search in decades for a hydrogen bomb lost off the Georgia coast in 1958 found no trace of the sunken weapon, the Air Force said Friday.
The report — issued nine months after scientists tested radiation levels off Tybee Island — concluded that there is no danger of a nuclear blast from the 7,600-pound bomb and that the weapon should be left where it is, buried somewhere in the muck.
“We still think it’s irretrievably lost. We don’t know where to look for it,” said Billy Mullins, an Air Force nuclear weapons adviser who led the search.
How I wish they were kidding me.
but let a hydrogen bomb go unguarded. Yeah – The government definitely has its priorities straight.
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When sub, plane or nuclear bomb reads Made in SU.
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Yeah, you’re right. It’s not like we ever had a plane highjacked by someone carrying a common house hold cutting tool. Oh wait… that happened.
This doesn’t surprise me. As time goes on we will be learning more and more things like this.
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Excellent location to keep tourists away. Can now be used for our very own nuclear sub graveyard, with US colors marking the Spot. Why should the former SU empire be more equal then US.
I always knew US is SU spelled backward, but does our administration have to act that way?
Nuclear Waste Sub Disasters ◊
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Start Page with excellent links to additional reading.
◊ Enlargement Map :: “Spent” Nuclear Fuel Storage see » column Images
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If I am not mistaken, there are something like eleven such lost atomic weapons off our coasts. Perhaps someone will correct me on that, but that is my recollection. Very scary, and nuts, if you ask me.
There have been more broken arrows than you might think.
The Center for Defense Information has a list and more than you probably want to know.
Somewhere there is a fantastic flash presentation listing them all with maps and circumstances but I can’t find it right now. I’ll post it if I do.
Oh, and the list at the link naturally only refers to nuclear mishaps that have come to light…
See also “Bent Spear” which is a less seriouse form of a “Broken Arror.” I think both “Broken Arror” and “Bent Spear” incidents can also include the lose of a nuclear weapon, and “Bent Spear” would be used in the event of an acident involving a nuclear weapon, where detonation was unlikely (such the derailment of a train carrying a nuclear warhead -yes, those things move by rail)
‘I don’t know which is scarier. That we lost a nuclear weapon, or that it happens often enough we have a name for it’
And here I thought losing a nuclear weapon only happend in the movies, and those names were there just in case we did lose one some day.
missile submarines, known as “boomers”. List here:
Perhaps more worrying though is the amount of nuclear material that has been lost which is thought to be enough to build 40 bombs. Just one link, though there are others which talk about material missing from US labs.
This page also has a lot of information. It says that 11 US nukes remain lost.
From the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ oops list.
The radioactivity could explain why Sonny Perdue was duly elected…
The whole state’s screwed…
Just an old deep bomb…
Keeps Tybee inlet mined…
(apologies to Ray Charles, RIP)
Here’s a plan: say that there’s a winning powerball ticket down there with it. We’ll have it located within hours.
And an arm band made of black cloth
Will some day nevermore adorn a sleeve.
For if the bomb that drops on you
Gets your friends and neighbors too,
There’ll be nobody left behind to grieve.
And we will all go together when we go.
What a comforting fact that is to know.
Universal bereavement,
An inspiring achievement,
Yes, we will all go together when we go.
We will all go together when we go.
All suffused with an incandescent glow.
No one will have the endurance
To collect on his insurance,
Lloyd’s of London will be loaded when they go…
from An Evening (Wasted) With Tom Lehrer
I swear I read about that in the news about four or five years ago. And we all said “Whhaaaaat?” then too.
The half life of tritium, the form of hydrogen used in these things is twelve years, so if it was lost in ’58, that’s roughly 4 half lives, so only 1/32 of the original fusible material is left. Of course ther’s always the fission detonator to worry about…
I remember reading about this one back in the 1980s.
There was another famous incident of a lost warhead in Spain, if I’m not mistaken. These incidents are known as “broken arrows.” Here’s a link for some nice light reading.
Sleep well.
Why in hell would they be having somebody flying around with a real nuke that can’t be set off? If they’re trying to teach the guy to fly, why wouldn’t they use a dummy? And how in hell can a plane with a live nuke crash into another Air Force plane? Think maybe you should be a little careful with cargoes like this?
Of course the story doesn’t say how much uranium is down there ready to leach out into the water eventually. I’m not sure I believe the part about it having no plutonium, either. Pu would be ample cause for panic, uranium much less so.
OTOH, this is no more of a threat than all the plutonium sitting around in the used fuel rods from nuclear power reactors. Assuming the bomb is really incapable of detonation, at least.
was for the fighter jet rather than the bomber and it hit the bomber rather than the other way round.
Since the weapon (3.5 metric tons worth of metal) was jettisoned, perhaps they took the Pu core out before dropping it.
There are several bombs and missiles lying about in the seas and oceans several of which did have plutonium inside. Check out the links in my comments up-thread.
doesn’t say, but you’re probably right. I don’t think that makes it any more reasonable to have a bomber with a live nuke flitting about in a training zone. It’s just another case of letting the military worldwide play with deadly technology that’s way, way, beyond its level of competence.
Imagine what kind of deadly technologies our boys are playing with these days that are way, way, way beyond their level of competence.
This is also very early days when they had not yet truly realized what nuclear weapons meant. We were still doing surface nuclear testing, our missiles were inaccurate and our warheads huge as a result, we had plans to convert most of our defense systems to nuclear systems, including air defense, we exposed troops to nuclear fallout to find out how long they could continue to fight afterwards. In short, nuclear weapons were everywhere at the time.
Hell, nuclear weapons were dispersed to bases in unreliable US allies such as Greece and Turkey and you’re complaining about a training flight. Sheesh.
: )
I recall that one was lost some time back off the coast of, um, North Carolina. Or maybe South.
Perhaps it’s the same one. If you lose something on land, chances are pretty good the thing will stay there almost indefinitely.
If you lose something at sea, currents and tides have a tricky way of moving things about. Sometimes things being moved about underwater by the aforementioned currents and tides bump into immovable objects. Cross your fingers.
worth of bomb do not float around that much and nuclear weapons that are not armed are actually pretty inert.
There are missile subs down there with fully intact MIRVed warheads.
I worry more about unpaid security guards in the former Soviet Union.
here’s some more happy reading: transcript of a hearing in the House of Reps, Oct. 26 1999
RUSSIAN THREAT PERCEPTIONS AND PLANS FOR SABOTAGE AGAINST THE UNITED STATES
For example, unknown to the West the NATO theater nuclear exercise Able Archer conducted in November, 1983, was misconstrued by the Soviets as possible preparations for a surprise nuclear attack and nearly triggered a Soviet preemptive nuclear strike.
How is all of this relevant today? Well, for one thing, the discovery of Russian explosives and arms caches on NATO territory appears to confirm or make more credible the claims of Stanislav Lunev, a former colonel in Russian military intelligence, who testified before this committee on August 4, 1998 and who published the book Through the Eyes of the Enemy. You remember we had Lunev testify behind a barrier and undercover during that hearing. Lunev defected to the United States in 1992 after working for more than a decade in the U.S. as a GRU operative. Lunev participated in a GRU program collecting information on the President and senior U.S. political and military leaders so they could be targeted for assassination in the event of war.
According to Lunev, small man-portable nuclear weapons that could be disguised to look like a suitcase would be employed in a decapitating Russian attack against U.S. leaders and key communications and military facilities. Colonel Lunev claimed that the Russian military and intelligence services still regard the United States as the enemy and consider war with the U.S. as inevitable. Colonel Lunev stated that man-portable nuclear weapons may already be located in the United States.
Lunev’s claim is based on his understanding of GRU doctrine for employing these weapons or call for prepositioning nuclear weapons in the United States during peace time before crisis or war makes penetration of the U.S. more difficult.