On this day in 1966, the US accidentally nuked Spain with 4 B28 hydrogen bombs aboard a B-52 that collided with a KC-135 tanker. There were four aircrew from the B-52 that survived, none on the KC-135. No one on the ground was hurt. Four bombs fell, two exploded their TNT loads (which are part of the nuke process). Fortunately for everybody in the area, the safeties worked, and we "only" spread 7 pounds of plutonium and americium around the area.
This kind of accident is called a Broken Arrow. This particular incident was dramatized in the movie Men of Honor where the diver Carl Brashear loses his leg during the recovery operation for the bomb that went into the Mediterranean.
The terms used for nuclear inicidents in DoD speak are:
Broken Arrow: This term identifies an accident involving a nuclear weapon or warhead or nuclear component, involving significant damage to the weapon and/or surrounding area that requires a massive response.
Bent Spear: This term is used to identify and report a nuclear weapon significant incident involving a nuclear weapon or warhead, nuclear components, or vehicle when nuclear-loaded. This covers things that result in non-dangerous damage to a weapon or that involves serious PR problems. Dropping a tool on a missile nose cone, or a fender bender in a truck carrying a nuke for example, can generate a Bent Spear report. Nothing like having your name on the President's desk within 24 hours... And an expensive report of survey for that nose cone. Why? if you dinged it sufficiently, that ding will generate enough drag that a Pershing II warhead might deviate enough from it's flight path to effectively miss it's target. Yeah, it's a nuke - but it really is a very small one, which we could do because we built the missile to be so accurate. If you dinged a cone, it had to be shipped back to the US for repair. That's expensive!
Empty Quiver: "A reporting term to identify and report the seizure, theft, or loss of a U.S. nuclear weapon."
Faded Giant: "A reporting term to identify an event involving a nuclear reactor or radiological accident."
Working with nukes was no fun. It was nothing but opportunity to fail after opportunity to fail. Not to mention scary every time you went through the assembly process. I was never so happy as when the Army decided to get out of the nuke business!
- Five months of pre-inspections
- Complying with PRP hoops everytime you PCS
- Doing access rosters in the days before word processors
- Running an operation one way for US inspectors and another way for the Host Nation inspectors
- Humping a up an icy slope in Wildflecken with a H912 container on your back when the wind is blowing so hard it is snowing sideways
- Wasting four days painting, stenciling, and refurbishing all the training systems so that they are pretty for the Inspeciton team
- Doing a 626 inspection on your back underneath a truck sitting in four inches of mud
- Having one of your soldiers get a hernia from trying to break loose a system you tied down in the back of a truck
- And the list goes on and on...
Although I will say any time you had an assembly team, you could count on having some of the smartest, most dedicated guys (13Bs exempted, of course) running around. Sapper Mike (PRP'd from '79 - '86) PS You forgot the joys of Delta Victor incidents.