Just saw this story on WNBC.
Apparently, a truck carrying a Tomahawk test missile collided with another truck, causing the first to lose its delicate payload:
Friday, July 21, 2006 · Last updated 7:34 a.m. PT
Truck carrying Tomahawk missile overturns
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — A tractor-trailer carrying a test missile collided with another truck during the morning rush hour Friday, sparking a call to the bomb squad before authorities determined the missile was inert.
No injuries were reported. Authorities said it was a Tomahawk test missile.
“It is considered to be technically a training/testing device,” said Joseph Green, spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Fortunately, this was a test missile (or so they tell us), which means no warhead was attached, nuclear or otherwise.
This does, however, bring up a larger issue, i.e., the transport of ordanance through populated areas. There was, in fact, an important story on this just a few days ago:
Road crash could set off nuclear blast
05 July 2006
Trident nuclear warheads damaged in a vehicle pile-up or a plane crash could partially detonate and deliver a lethal radiation dose, according to a newly declassified report from the UK Ministry of Defence obtained by New Scientist. The MoD has also revealed that an attack by terrorists on a nuclear weapons convoy could produce an even more disastrous outcome. “The consequences of such an incident are likely to be considerable loss of life,” says a senior MoD official.
[…]
But according to the report extreme accidents could result in a nuclear explosion. A serious vehicle collision or an aircraft crash combined with multiple failures of the MoD’s secret protective measures could mean that the weapon might not remain single-point safe. The report puts the overall yearly risk of an “inadvertent yield” in the UK at 2.4 in a billion, mainly due to the possibility of an aircraft crashing onto a convoy. Inadvertent yield suggests a partial nuclear explosion, also called fizzle yield, smaller than the full yield of up to 100 kilotons.
Well, as long as it’s only a “fizzle.” And what’s 100 kilotons, give or take a few? Merely eight times the size of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
Feeling safer?
We’ve been lucky; the military, and others, routinely transport all kinds of nasty stuff through population centers. It’s only a matter of time before there is a catastrophic accident.
Fortuntately, this incident was relatively benign.
Cross-posted in Orange, and my own pathetic blog.