However, one official US cable reported that it was a "miracle" that one bomb with "exposed detonators" did not explode, which would have released nuclear material into the environment.

A parked U.S. Air Force F-100 Super Sabre loaded with a Mark 28 hydrogen bomb caught fire after the pilot accidentally jettisoned his fuel tanks upon turning his engines on, the fuel tanks rupturing as they struck the concrete runway beneath.

[10] A similar nuclear near-disaster allegedly occurred at RAF Greenham Common less than two years after the first incident at Lakenheath in February 1958 when an aircraft possibly carrying a nuclear bomb caught fire, but the UK government officially denied an accident took place there as recently as 1996.

[11] The USAF authorities, as well as the British and American governments, attempted to "hush up" reports on the 1956 incident at Lakenheath for some time.

[12] However, the 1961 incident at the airfield was only officially acknowledged by the UK government in 2003, when the Ministry of Defence was forced to publish a list of 20 British accidents involving nuclear weapons between 1960 and 1991.