List of military nuclear accidents
While demonstrating his technique to visiting scientists at Los Alamos, Canadian physicist Louis Slotin manually assembled a critical mass of plutonium.
Fearing that severe weather and icing would jeopardize a safe emergency landing, the weapon was jettisoned over the Pacific Ocean from a height of 8,000 ft (2,400 m).
In the resulting fire, the bomb's high-explosive material exploded, killing nineteen people from the crew and rescue personnel.
[11] Returning one of several U.S. Mark 4 nuclear bombs (minus a fissile core) secretly deployed in Canada, a USAF B-50 had engine trouble and jettisoned the weapon at 10,500 feet (3,200 m).
[12] A USAF B-47 Stratojet on a non-stop mission from MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, to an overseas base descended into a cloud formation at 14,000 feet over the Mediterranean in preparation for an in-air refueling and vanished while transporting two capsules of nuclear weapons material in carrying cases (and no complete weapons; a nuclear detonation was not possible).
[21] A fire began in a theoretically fireproof area inside the plutonium processing building, in a glovebox used to handle radioactive materials, igniting the combustible rubber gloves and plexiglas windows of the box.
The fire spread through the ventilation system as the containment ability of the facility became compromised, with plumes of radioactive smoke sent high into the outside air.
[23][24][25][26] A cooling system failure at the Mayak nuclear processing plant resulted in a major explosion and release of radioactive materials.
The excess heat led to the failure of a nuclear cartridge, which in turn allowed uranium and irradiated graphite to react with air.
A 1987 report by the National Radiological Protection Board predicted the accident would cause as many as 100 long-term cancer deaths, although the Medical Research Council Committee concluded that "it is in the highest degree unlikely that any harm has been done to the health of anybody, whether a worker in the Windscale plant or a member of the general public."
[31][32][33] A USAF B-47 bomber jettisoned a Mark 15 Mod 0 nuclear bomb (the nuclear capsule was not aboard the aircraft; the bomb contained a simulated 150-pound (68 kg) capsule made of lead) over the Atlantic Ocean after a midair collision with a USAF F-86 Sabre during a simulated combat mission from Homestead Air Force Base, Florida.
A USAF B-47E bomber, number 53-1876A, was flying from Hunter Air Force Base in Savannah, Georgia, to England in a formation of four B-47s on a top-secret mission called Operation Snow Flurry to perform a mock bombing exercise.
The flight navigator/bombardier was checking the locking harness on the massive (7,600 pounds (3,447 kg)) Mark 6 nuclear bomb when he accidentally pushed the emergency release lever.
[53] USAF B-52 bomber departed Mather Air Force Base, California and experienced a decompression event that required it to fly below 10,000 feet.
USAF B-52 on airborne alert duty encountered a severe winter storm and extreme turbulence, ultimately disintegrating in midair over South Central Pennsylvania.
A third bomb landed intact near Palomares, Almería (Spain) while the fourth fell 12 miles (19 km) off the coast into the Mediterranean sea.
During the ensuing cleanup, 1,500 tonnes (1,700 short tons) of radioactive soil and tomato plants were shipped to a nuclear dump in Aiken, South Carolina.
The motion picture Men of Honor (2000), starring Cuba Gooding, Jr., as USN Diver, Master Chief Petty Officer Carl Brashear, and Robert De Niro as USN Diver, Chief Petty Officer Billy Sunday, contained an account of the fourth bomb's recovery.
At about 6:30 p.m., an airman conducting maintenance on a USAF Titan-II missile at Little Rock Air Force Base's Launch Complex 374-7 in Southside (Van Buren County), just north of Damascus, Arkansas, dropped a nine-pound (4 kg) socket from a socket wrench, which fell about 80 feet (24 m) before hitting and piercing the skin on the rocket's first-stage fuel tank, causing it to leak.
The W53 warhead landed about 100 feet (30 m) from the launch complex's entry gate; its safety features operated correctly and prevented any explosion, chemical or nuclear.
[87] According to the version presented by Russian officials, it was a result of a failed test of an "isotope power source for a liquid-fuelled rocket engine".
[88][89][90] Nonproliferation expert Jeffrey Lewis and Federation of American Scientists fellow Ankit Panda suspect the incident resulted from a test of the Burevestnik cruise missile.
[91] However, other arms control experts disputed the assertions; Ian Williams of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace expressed skepticism over Moscow's financial and technical capabilities to field the weapon,[92] while Michael Kofman of the Wilson Center concluded that the explosion was probably not related to Burevestnik but instead to the testing of another military platform.
