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US Will Clean Area In Spain Where Hydrogen Bombs Fell (nytimes.com)
HughPickens.com writes: Rafael Minder writes in the NY Times that almost 50 years after coming close to possibly provoking a nuclear disaster, Secretary of State John Kerry, following years of wrangling between Spain and the U.S., signed an agreement to remove contaminated soil from an area in southern Spain where an American warplane accidentally dropped hydrogen bombs. In 1966 a bomber collided with a refueling tanker in midair and dropped four hydrogen bombs, two of which released plutonium into the atmosphere. No warheads detonated, narrowly averting what could have been an explosion more powerful than the atomic strikes against Japan at the end of World War II. Four days after the accident, the Spanish government stated that "the Palomares incident was evidence of the dangers created by NATO's use of the Gibraltar airstrip," announcing that NATO aircraft would no longer be permitted to fly over Spanish territory either to or from Gibraltar. The U.S. later announced that it would no longer fly over Spain with nuclear weapons, and the Spanish government formally banned U.S. flights over its territory that carried such weapons.
Neither Kerry nor Spanish Foreign Minister García-Margallo said exactly how much contaminated soil would be sent back, where it would be stored in the United States, or who would pay for the cleanup — some of the issues that have held up a deal until now. Spain has insisted that any contaminated soil be sent to the United States, because Spain does not have plants to store it. Concern over the site was reawakened in the 1990s when tests revealed high levels of americium, an isotope of plutonium, and further tests showed that 50,000 cubic meters of earth were still contaminated. The Spanish government appropriated the land in 2003 to prevent it being used.
Neither Kerry nor Spanish Foreign Minister García-Margallo said exactly how much contaminated soil would be sent back, where it would be stored in the United States, or who would pay for the cleanup — some of the issues that have held up a deal until now. Spain has insisted that any contaminated soil be sent to the United States, because Spain does not have plants to store it. Concern over the site was reawakened in the 1990s when tests revealed high levels of americium, an isotope of plutonium, and further tests showed that 50,000 cubic meters of earth were still contaminated. The Spanish government appropriated the land in 2003 to prevent it being used.
Americium is NOT an isotope of plutonium, it is a decay product of Uranium/Plutonium, specifically
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americium#Isotope_nucleosyntheses
Jack ass
I know I shat on your carpet while running through your house uninvited, but why should I have to clean it up?
After a couple neutrons are captured. Am-241 is the most common isotope (half life of 400-odd years). Pu-239 captures two neutrons (rarely), then undergoes beta decay to become Am-241.
Since this normally requires a specially designed reactor to produce, the amount produced casually by four bombs will have been minuscule.
Which is not to say it shouldn't be cleaned up. Just that the urgency of the cleanup is pretty much consistent with taking 50 years to get around to it.
Note the amount of material being discussed (50000 m^3 of dirt). Cleanup can be done with one of those big earth movers used when strip mining in a few months, tops....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Wells, we did drop four hydrogen bombs during a plane wreck....
Worst. Pilot. Resume. Ever.
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
Because nuclear weapons tend to require carefully timed simultaneous detonations of explosives in a controlled manner in order to compress the fission core to a supercritical mass, it is unlikely that simply dropping the bomb (unarmed) or even having some of the explosives used for core compression go off will create an actual nuclear scale detonation.
However, the explosives for the explosive lens can go off and distribute radioactive material over a relatively wide area. This was more of a threat in the past, when explosives used in the bombs were somewhat more sensitive. Additionally, some explosives become more sensitive over time, so bombs stored for long periods could have somewhat more sensitive explosives and react badly to an accidental drop or crash.
All of that being said... an actual accidental nuclear explosion is extremely unlikely, but not entirely impossible in the case of an accident, and it was much, much more likely back when these bombs were dropped in Spain.
Also, there was one time where a bomb was lost where all but one of the safeties had been deactivated. And that was a mechanical breaker which could well have been flipped. Luckily, that sort of thing was much more common when SAC was actually doing regular strategic deterrent missions and bomb design had not progressed as far as it has today.
no, it's more like saying your grandfather took a dump on my carpet and the estate has been dodging responsibility ever since.
Are you serious ?
If it were Spanish H bombs on US soil would you let Spain off the hook for the expensive cleanup ?
Since you don't believe in responsibility, let's give BP a refund for clearing up their own mess too.
Fuckwit.
While it's true that nuclear weapons usually have to be detonated in a very precise manner to create a full yield explosion, it's not true that accidental detonation is not a possibility. Depending on the weapon design, accidental detonation can actually be quite likely (a few percent of all hypothetical impact/fire scenarios). The details of this can get very technical, but the gist of it is that due to various size constraints many weapons were designed with two-point detonation systems ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ) and these are very prone to accidental nuclear detonation. It was partly as a response to this that insensitive high explosive detonators were developed. Labs like DART have the responsibility of thoroughly testing nuclear weapons primaries to make sure that (1) they will explode when required and (2) will not explode when not required.
'Safety devices' are a completely different issue and they prevent an unauthorized person from activating the device's detonator.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
i mean it sucks and all, but why should we be on the hook for this???
Well, let me see. The aircraft that crashed where ours. The bombs where ours. The pilots where ours and we where flying alone. The wreckage from the accident which was totally our fault fell on Spain... Hmmm...I don't know, Maybe we are responsible for the mess and should clean it up?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Isn't it wonderful that Spain appreciates that we kept a certain person from waltzing through France and down the Iberian peninsula
Spain was an ally of the Nazis. The Nazis helped Franco win the Spanish Civil War. Spain sent more than 45,000 troops to fight with the Germans on the Eastern Front. Hitler pressured Franco to attack the British and drive them out of Gibraltar, but the British made it clear that if Gibraltar was attacked, they would immediately seize the Canary Islands.
This bomb design actually was a bit dangerous because the conventional explosives where a bit unstable during aircraft crash events. This crash and another one two years later caused a number of changes to nuclear bomb design after the Mk28.
Where I don't think "narrowly avoided a nuclear explosion" is anywhere near accurate, these bombs did explode conventionally and spread their radioactive content around and there is a *remote* possibility that these devices when flying in the "Chrome Dome" operation could have accidently caused a nuclear explosion during a crash because they would have been fully armed physically. I hear that the Mk28 had a number of fail physical and electrical fail safe systems that made it nearly impossible to explode in a nuclear way, but it's not impossible to have these systems disabled/defeated during an accident. If it could go nuclear on command, it's remotely possible to do it on accident.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
They'll turn all that Americium into smoke detectors and we'll all get to listen to that fucking beep in the middle of the night because nobody can seem to make a detector that has a light sensor on it.
Of course they have light sensors in them. That's how they know to wait until the middle of the night before they start beeping.
"I'm guessing a lot of American dollars will also head that way since Spain is pretty much insolvent"
Debt-to-GDP ratio:
USA: 101.33%
Spain: 97.70%
If Spain is "pretty much insolvent" what does that make for USA?
You should read "Command and Control." It's a very good book, but you come away with the feeling that it was more good luck than good management that there were no accidental nuclear detonations. And then you consider that the Soviet side was probably at least as bad, if not worse, and you're surprised there's still a planet here at all.