US Air Forces nearly detonate an atomic bomb over North Carolina in 1961 - report
© Flickr.com/Northern Lights/cc-by-nc-sa 3.0 http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_09_21/US-Air-Forces-nearly-detonate-an-atomic-bomb-over-North-Carolina-in-1961-report-9927/
The
1969 document, obtained by investigative journalist Eric Schlosser
under the Freedom of Information Act, details the Jan. 23, 1961, B-52
crash near Goldsboro, North Carolina, that saw two Mark 39 hydrogen
bombs break up in mid-air.
The
report said that one of the two bombs behaved exactly as nuclear weapon
is designed to function in wartime and that only a single low-voltage
switch prevented detonation. Fallout could have been deposited over
Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City, according to the
report.
Parker
Jones, a senior engineer in the Sandia National Laboratories in
Albuquerque, N.M., wrote in the report that "one simple,
dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United States
and a major catastrophe".
Jones,
analyzing a book by physicist Ralph Lapp on the crash, found that the
bombs "did not possess adequate safety for the airborne alert role in
the B-52" and concluded that the detonation "would have been bad news –
in spades.
"Three
of the eight crew members died in the crash. In July 2012, the state of
North Carolina placed a historic marker in the town of Eureka with the
words "nuclear mishap," according to the Raleigh News and Observer.
The
Guardian reported that Schlosser obtained the document while conducting
research for a new book on the nuclear arms race, "Command and
Control."
"The
US government has consistently tried to withhold information from the
American people in order to prevent questions being asked about our
nuclear weapons policy," Schlosser told the newspaper. "We were told
there was no possibility of these weapons accidentally detonating, yet
here's one that very nearly did."
Voice of Russia, The Guardian, Fox News, RT
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