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Five Times the US Almost Nuked Itself
kdawson writes "io9 has a scary outline of five times the US came close to accidental nuclear disasters. Quoting: '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.'"
In the case of the Travis accident, there was no nuclear disaster precisely because the nuclear core was not loaded. The Air Force was all too aware of the number of B-29's that crashed on or shortly after takeoff and never armed the weapons until they were close to the target area. To call this a "close call" is simply fear mongering to get page hits.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
>> Had the bomb been armed with its fissile capsule, the immediate death toll may have reached six figures.
So now we see why the bomb wasn't "armed with its fissile capsule", don't we?
Seriously, sad about the lives lost at the time an all, but to describe this as "almost nuked America" is facetious at best. This being the example chosen to represent the articles contents (and so probably the "best" of the incidents) I see no reason to read any further.
This is no more "nearly nuked" than the making of the movie "Broken Arrow". After all, they had props that looked like nukes in that. What if there's been a mix-up somewhere along the line? OMG! Nearly nuked America again!
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
Had the bomb been armed with its fissile capsule, the immediate death toll may have reached six figures.
And maybe that's the reason the fissile material wasn't inserted into the bomb? And in any event I'd be very surprised if the fire caused the explosives to detonate sufficently simoultaneously to actually cause anything more than a fizzle.
IANANP, but AFAIK a regular explosion or fire will not set off a nuclear weapon. The trigger explosion has to be carefully controlled, otherwise it'll just blow apart the nuclear material instead of compressing it to supercritical. That's why it's so hard to build a nuke. Crashing with a nuke is at worst going to spread some nuclear material over a small area, in the same way that any other material in the crash would be. No nuclear explosion.
Did they try dropping the B29 from orbit? It's the only way to be sure...
This reminds me of the time the US was almost attacked by giant killer terrorist robots. Luckily, Osama didn't invent and deploy them, otherwise the death toll could have been in the 9 figures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash
Not one, 4 hydrogen bombs. 2 of them actually detonated on impact. Probably the worst USA nuclear weapons incident in history.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Not really. Unlike the UK, almost all doctors in America are private practice doctors and not on government salary. The same with hospitals, a mix of private and local/state public hospitals. The health care reform legislation passed is mainly for insurance; the government won't change its control of doctors or which private plans people choose. So the government really isn't in charge of health care, although they've taken a more regulatory role in insurance.
If the fission capsule were in there, it most likely would not have gone off. With a implosion bomb (fat man style, as the Mark IV was), all the explosive has to go off at the same time, to very close accurate (picoseconds). If some goes off first, it just blows the core apart instead of pushing it to supercriticality.That is, if the core weren't scattered in the crash before the fire set off the explosives anyway.
Basically, you would have had a dirty bomb, no more.
Now, a little boy (uranium gun-type) bomb can go off by accidentally more easily, but getting the material for those is so difficult that few are made.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
So none of these times did we almost nuked our self... ,people that will not bother to read, and those that are already full of fear mindless fear. Move on nothing to see here.
The first on in 1950 at Travis the bomb wasn't armed. AKA it had no nuclear material in it.
So there was zero chance that we would get nuked.
The second at Fermi 1. A reactor problem that was contained and couldn't have caused a nuclear explosion as in a bomb going off. It could have been bad but the systems worked.
The third was another un armed bomb.
The forth another reactor problem and again the emergency systems worked and no chance of a bomb like blast.
The last was a when a training tap was played on real systems. Yes air craft where launched and that mistake was never made again but the the safety systems and procedures worked.
What is this a piece of FUD? Good at scaring children
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Not really. Unlike the UK, almost all doctors in America are private practice doctors and not on government salary. The same with hospitals, a mix of private and local/state public hospitals. The health care reform legislation passed is mainly for insurance; the government won't change its control of doctors or which private plans people choose. So the government really isn't in charge of health care, although they've taken a more regulatory role in insurance.
While factual, your post goes against the narrative we're trying to push here. Expect to be modded into oblivion.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
In addition nuclear plants cannot cause nuclear explosions so while the US may have come close to contaminating areas there was zero danger of a nuclear explosion in such cases.
I wonder how many other times good risk management and fail-safes prevented a nuclear disaster?
To err is human, to err without planning for eventual mistakes can be criminally negligent homicide.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
These people will soon be in charge of health care.
This statement brought to you by the people who brought you the quote, "The government better keep its hands off my Medicare!"
Or at least one of the top two.
It has nuked itself on quite a number of occasions, often in Nevada. It hasn't done this for a long time now, but it used to.
Scary scary oooh nuclear we're all gonna die! But somehow, against all odds, life on the planet survived the repeated nuking of Nevada. It was a slim chance! How we made it through, god only knows. Good thing luck was on our side.
Captcha: TARGET.
He who regulates something, runs it.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
A an accidental detonation from a bomb twice the size dropped on Japan would not result in " immediate death toll" that " may have reached six figures".
In 1950, the population of Fairfield was around 3000. I don't know the size of the air force base, but I don't think it was close to the 6 figure range (today it has 15K military and civilian workers, it may have been higher during the cold war). Suisun City today has a fraction of the population of Fairfield.
Just 3km from the hypocenter of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, most structures withstood the blast and most people that were indoors survived the initial blast.
And that bomb detonated at an altitude of 500m to maximize destruction. An accidental surface detonation in an airplane crash is going to have a much smaller destructive zone, even though the bomb is twice as powerful. So even if that bomb had detonated in the crash, there would be survivors even on the airbase itself.
Even in a 1 megaton blast (50 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Nagasaki) , there's a 75% survival rate just 7.5 miles from the blast.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/sfeature/1mtblast.html
So even if a a 1 Megaton accidental detonation occurred in the NW corner of the base today, it wouldn't cause an immediate 6 figure death toll.
This, of course, this ignores the long term deaths and illness caused by radiation exposure.
B-52 crash at Thule, Greenland, 1968.
4 hydrogen bombs aboard, contamination of a large area. The secondary of one the 4 bombs were never found.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash
I see a lot of comments like this immediately following things modded to +5. It seems the Slashdot Groupthink is less powerful than some might imagine.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
You mean the people who through prudent safety protocols managed to not have a single accidental detonation of the most dangerous weapons ever made? It's too bad they won't actually be in charge.
Instead, we've left health care in the hands of the civilian sector which HAS had actual accidental radiation leakage from time to time (though to be fair it wasn't that much) and isn't trusted with the weapons.
As far as medical insurance goes, it really hasn't been handled well by private industry. Ideally, we all pool, and all receive care. The private insurance industry has caused a health class divide to develop; on one side, we have people who get medical care, and on the other, those who don't. Like education, healthcare is a basic need.
Sadly, the legislature really didn't do what those who elected them wanted them to do, which was get the insurance companies out of the system entirely. The current half-measures... they're not going to work.
Kind of like Canada. The government pays doctors, builds and run hospitals, chooses what procedures are covered, but has no say in which doctor you use. I can use whatever doctor, at whatever clinic, at whatever hospital I want. The doctor doesn't have to worry about a "pre-existing" condition invalidating my insurance, or about caps, or co-pays.
Still not happy, and have lots of money? nothing stopping you form flying to the states, and there are private clinics up here too.
Anarchists never rule
It's got nothing to do with group-think. Apparently some people have a persecution-complex, even though their views match the popular opinion. Not sure how that happens, but it seems to be quite common.
I was nearly incinerated by Godzilla yesterday! I remember it well. The only thing that saved me is that there was no fire and Godzilla wasn't actually there!
Man, what a relief that was!
So the safety features worked as designed.
Bombs were not armed. The critical igniter capsule which was designed to be installed just prior to attack was not in the bombs, as per design and regulations, yet you are handing out Darwin awards?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Which people? The ones who died? The ones who survived?
Or maybe you mean the ones whose nuclear handling procedures successfully prevented an accidental detonation in the even of an airplane crash?
Sensationalist story with absurd summary is absurd. Trying to twist that story into a 'government is incompetent' narrative is like wearing your shoes on the wrong feet. The incident in the summary is a prime example of government properly instituting and following critical safety protocols--or are you going to suggest that only government planes have ever crashed?
Pretty much all this shows is that, at least when it comes to nukes, the safety systems are pretty good. Almost nuking yourself means something like "The bomb was going to detonate, but a technician was able to defuse it in time." Not "A bomb was in a perfectly safe condition when the airplane it was on crashed and the bomb did not go off."
Even the NORAD incident. It wasn't a case of one lone guy staving off a nuclear strike while his superiors yelled for launch (as happened in the Soviet Union). It looked like an attack was happening, so things went to high alert. Everyone was ready. What did they do? They WAITED FOR CONFIRMATION. When it turned out that it was a false alarm, they stood down. That is precisely how things should happen. They didn't ignore ti and go "Eh, probably just a bug," but they didn't go full out WW3 for no reason. On the warning, everything got ready to go, but confirmation was needed. For that matter, even had there been confirmation an order would still have been needed.
To me, looks like the US has pretty damn good nuclear safeguards. If the best "almosts" they can find were things when nothing even came close to actually going wrong that is good.
Hell look on the civilian side, at Three Mile Island. The "Worst nuclear disaster in US history." Even with a rather major screwup making the problem so much worse, something the NRC discovered, it still didn't release any significant amount of radiation, not enough to cause any adverse health effects (and it has been studied for decades now). That's pretty fucking good, if the worst it gets is a case of "Nobody got hurt."
The irony of the total cost of nuclear weapons by the USA is that it is about enough money (by one estimate I read) to tear down and rebuild every building in the USA twice...
California has money problems right now -- a shortfall of, what, US$20 billion? According to here:
http://www.statemaster.com/graph/mil_cos_of_nuc_wea-military-cost-of-nuclear-weapons
a total of US$2,139,150,000.00 has been spent on just California's behalf on nuclear weapons in the past.
What are we really defending here?
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
That sure would come in handy for CA right now, to have an extra two trillion dollars in their budget reserve (not to mention interest).
As Albert Einstein said, with the advent of understanding the power of the atom, everything has changed but our way of thinking. Thus my sig below about the irony of such advanced ultra-powerful tools of abundance in the hands of those obsessed with fighting over perceived scarcity.
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
except we've had more and more government involvement over the last 50 years, and healthcare, in many ways, gets worse and worse. The real problem is we encourage third party payment. Imagine if employers gave out food insurance because the government gave them tax breaks for doing so, we'd eventually have the same situation, and everyone would blame the insurance companies then.
One big thing that has happend - the control over what is and is not insured has pretty much been ceded to the goverment now. It was previously in the hands of the state Board of Insurance in each of the 50 states. This has a huge effect on costs.
How does it effect costs? Well, let's say you are part of a group that believes that Fibromyalgia is a serious condition that must be covered by insurance plans. Previously, your group would have to lobby in each of the 50 states to get coverage approved and mandated. Now all you have to do is stop at one federal agency and if they agree, it is mandated for all 50 states.
Copy this for acupuncture, massage therapy, sex disfunction treatments involving use of a surrogate, etc. You get the idea. It has now become about 50 times easier to get coverage for the malady of the week covered by insurance.
Why is health insurance more expensive in California than in, say, Wyoming? Well, California mandates coverage for a lot of things that aren't required to be covered anywhere else.
When people say costs are going to triple in 2014, I'd listen to them. They stand an awfully good chance of being right.
You are not pushing the people's anti-nuke agenda! More fear mongering! More misinformation! MORE MORE MORE!
"It nearly turned the Earth into another Sun!" has a much NICER ring to it!
Now conform or your opinions are invalid! ;-)
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Sadly, the legislature really didn't do what those who elected them wanted them to do, which was get the insurance companies out of the system entirely. The current half-measures... they're not going to work.
I see your point, and raise you another...
The insurance is the leading cause of escalating health costs, these days.
Example: Go to the doctor's office for some reason. Speak to the doctor for 8 minutes, after a 47-minute wait (but if you're 15 minutes late for your "appointment", they charge you for the visit and cancel your appointment). Speak to the financial desk immediately after (if not before) the appointment. If you have insurance, the visit is $480. If you don't, it's $120.
In any other field, this would be called fraud. What gives?
Hopefully. The VA system actually has proper electronic medical records shared between hospitals.
Not a typewriter
Given that we've had several approved drugs recently kill & maim a whole lot of people, how do you propose to make the current system both easier (and thus cheaper) and safer?
Because your state has different regulations than your neighboring state. See, in a democracy, the people elect representatives who then create "the rules". "The rules" for health insurance in CA are different than "the rules" in DE.
Conservatives used to like having that kind of local control, where individual states got to decide what was important to them. Apparently, conservatives now believe we should let some other state decide what the de-facto regulations are in our own state. At the same time they're decrying federal regulations...but with the federal regulations we at least get to vote on the people making "the rules".
Actually, we evil liberal commie bastards have been working on this for a very, very long time (Truman administration, to be precise). We know what's happening. We know that health insurance can never be an efficient market due to factors like adverse selection, and their being 'no price' on our individual lives. That's why we've been trying to get health insurance out of the private sector for so long - the 'invisible hand' only works in an efficient market.
Liberals don't think government has no problems. They just think the solution is to fix them.
Problem: Inadequate response to Katrina/Gulf oil spill.
Liberal proposal: Better funding and training so next disaster gets a better response.
Conservative proposal: Disband FEMA and cut taxes.
Only one of these proposals is actually a solution.
I think the simplest way to describe the difference between liberals and conservatives and this pretty much is true irregardless of what your speaking of, BTW
Liberals are whores...but well paid whores...we don't just give our vote away without being paid handsomely for it in the way of Government Action.
Conservatives ARE NOT whores...simply sluts...they will simply give their vote to anyone who makes them feel all cuddly inside irregardless of the truth.
Make no mistake, whichever side you're on, you're going to get f$%ked...no question about it. The only choice you have is whether you actually get something out of the deal.
With that said...Democrat for life, thank you very much.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Why the fuck are you so angry?
Maybe he really craved for the fries all along, and not the hamburger itself?
Often if someone posts to say something will be modded down, people then mod it up. Also, just because you see something at +5 Informative, doesn't mean it wasn't blasted down as Flamebait, Overrated or Redundant which comments often are for a while first. On the whole, the Slashdot system balances things out because moderations are capped, so it only takes a few people to mod something up to counterbalance a horde of people modding it down. For some reason the process tends to go down first then up, so it depends how long after the comment was posted (and how far down the story it's slid) what outcome you see.
;)
I'm a anti-piracy AGW-skeptic. Trust me, I know about getting modded down.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.