Lost bombs, crashed bombers, misplaced warheads and false alarms: the accidents and close calls of the nuclear age, and what they say about luck.
One of my favorite cocktail party gambits is to explain that the United States lost nuclear weapons all the time during the Cold War, including one off the coast of Georgia in 1958. After a moment of awkward disbelief, I…
Consider this long post a crude proselytizing effort in this holiday season for those who doubt the existence of God, angels, guardians, guides, benevolent spirits, or deities of any kind or persuasion. One way to get religion is to have…
As far as I can tell, there’s nothing new in the flurry of recent press coverage about the near-detonation of an H-bomb near Goldsboro, North Carolina after a B-52 broke apart in flight on January 24, 1961. But declassified documents…
Readers may recall an earlier post about Vasili Alexandrovich Arkipov and the Cuban missile crisis. Arkipov was one of three officers on board the Soviet diesel sub B-59 who voted on whether to fire their nuclear-tipped torpedo while being depth…
The Soviet Navy viewed nuclear-tipped torpedoes as aircraft carrier killers. A Soviet Foxtrot class diesel submarine, B-59, had this ace-in-the-hole when it was being depth-charged to the surface by the U.S. Navy during the Cuban missile crisis. Did Adm. George…
Stanislav Petrov’s story is about to be featured in a new movie, The Man Who Saved the World. This title suggests more than the usual artistic license, but if license weren’t granted when dealing with the Apocalypse, then where would…
Moritz Bleibtreu and Martina Gedeck as Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof in the 2009 film, The Baader Meinhof Complex. Jeffrey’s posts and videos of the walkabout at the NATO nuclear weapon storage site in Belgium reminded me of a story…
POGO claims that that workers at Pantex disassembling a W56 (exactly like that warhead) nearly made a big oopsie: Now we have learned that in March 2005, there was a “near-miss” event while disassembling another W56 warhead. Apparently the production…
On August 30, the first time since 1968, a U.S. bomber transported missiles armed with six nuclear warheads. By accident. The story is front page CNN.com, but here is the more detailed version at Military Times. The article quotes Hans…
Remember that incident a few years ago at Minot Air Force Base, with nuclear warheads being transported by accident? Of course we do… discussed all over ACW (link, link and link). The Air Force conducted the Commander Directed Report of…
I do not find compelling the speculation, suggested by Larry Johnson and others, that the nuclear-armed Advanced Cruise Missiles that mistakenly ended up at Barksdale Air Force Base were being staged for an attack on Iran. Pilots, crews and all…
Accidents happen. The least accident-prone nuclear weapons are the ones that are not in motion — but not always: see Eric Schlosser’s account of the Damascus incident in Command and Control. Nuclear weapons in transit are more accident prone. The…
Quote of the week: “In order to know what is going to happen, one must know what has happened.” — Nicolo Machiavelli How have we managed to avoid mushroom clouds in warfare since 1945? Deterrence has to get credit, but…
