Palomares hydrogen bombs incident

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Palomares hydrogen bombs incident

The B28RI nuclear bomb, recovered from 2,850 feet (869 m) of water, on the deck of the USS Petrel.
Summary
Date January 17, 1966
Type Mid-air collision
Site over the Mediterranean Sea
Total fatalities 7
First aircraft
Type B-52G
Operator United States Air Force
Fatalities 3
Second aircraft
Type KC-135 Stratotanker
Operator United States Air Force
Crew 4
Survivors 0

The Palomares hydrogen bombs incident occurred on January 17, 1966 when a B-52G bomber of the USAF Strategic Air Command collided with a KC-135 tanker during mid-air refuelling at 31,000 feet (9,450 m) over the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Spain. The KC-135 was completely destroyed when its fuel load ignited, killing all four crew members. The B-52G broke apart, killing three crew members.[1]

Of the four Mk28 type hydrogen bombs the B-52G carried,[2] three were found on land near the small fishing village of Palomares, in Andalucía, Spain. The conventional explosives in two of the weapons were detonated, resulting in the contamination of a two km² area by radioactive plutonium. The fourth, which fell into the Mediterranean Sea, was recovered intact after a 2½ month-long search.[3]

Contents

[edit] Accident

The B-52G began its mission from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina, carrying four Type B28RI hydrogen bombs.[3] It was dispatched on an airborne alert mission named Operation Chrome Dome, with a flight plan that was to take it across the Atlantic Ocean and Europe, where it would follow the borders of the Soviet Union and finally return home. The lengthy flight required two mid-air refuelings over Spain.[1]

At about 10:30 a.m. on January 17, 1966, while flying at 31,000 feet (9,450 m), the bomber commenced its second aerial refueling with a KC-135 out of Morón Air Base in southern Spain. The B-52 pilot, Major Larry G. Messinger, later recalled,[4]

We came in behind the tanker, and we were a little bit fast, and we started to overrun him a little bit. There is a procedure they have in refueling where if the boom operator feels that you’re getting too close and it’s a dangerous situation, he will call, 'Break away, break away, break away.' There was no call for a breakaway, so we didn’t see anything dangerous about the situation. But all of a sudden all hell seemed to break loose.

Cuevas del Almanzora within the province of Almería.
Cuevas del Almanzora within the province of Almería.

The planes collided, with the nozzle of the refueling boom striking the top of the B-52 fuselage, creating a force sufficient to break the longeron and snap off the left wing,[5][6] which resulted in an explosion that was witnessed by a second B-52 about a mile away. All four men on the KC-135, and three men in the after part of the flight deck of the bomber were killed.

Those killed in the tanker were boom operator Master Sergeant Lloyd Potolicchio, pilot Major Emil J. Chapla, copilot Captain Paul R. Lane and navigator Captain Leo E. Simmons. On board the bomber, navigator First Lieutenant Steven G. Montanus, electronic warfare officer First Lieutenant George J. Glessner and gunner Technical Sergeant Ronald P. Snyder were killed.[5][6]

Four of the seven crew members of the bomber managed to parachute to safety: Major Messinger, aircraft commander Captain Charles F. Wendorf, copilot First Lieutenant Michael J. Rooney and radar-navigator Captain Ivens Buchanan.[1][7] Montanus also made it out of the plane, but his parachute never opened.[5] Buchanan received burns from the explosion and was unable to separate himself from his ejection seat, but he was nevertheless able to open his parachute, and he survived the impact with the ground. The other three surviving crew members landed safely several miles out to sea.[4]

The Palomares residents carried Buchanan to a local clinic, while Wendorf and Rooney were picked up at sea by the fishing boat Dorita. The last to be rescued was Messinger, who spent 45 minutes in the water before he was brought aboard the fishing boat Agustin y Rosa by Francisco Simó Orts. All three men that landed in the sea were taken to a hospital in Aquilas.[1]

Three of the hydrogen bombs fell to earth near the fishing village of Palomares. This settlement is part of Cuevas del Almanzora municipality, in the Almeria provinec of Andalucía, Spain. All three weapons were located within 24 hours following the accident. The fourth weapon landed in the Mediterranean sea.[3][1]

[edit] The fourth bomb

The recovered hydrogen bomb was displayed by U.S. Navy officials on the fantail of the submarine rescue ship U.S.S. Petrel after it was located in the Mediterranean sea off the coast of Spain at a depth of 2,500 feet (760 m) and recovered in April 1966
The recovered hydrogen bomb was displayed by U.S. Navy officials on the fantail of the submarine rescue ship U.S.S. Petrel after it was located in the Mediterranean sea off the coast of Spain at a depth of 2,500 feet (760 m) and recovered in April 1966

The search for the fourth bomb was carried out by means of a novel mathematical method, Bayesian search theory, led by Dr. John Craven. This method assigns probabilities to individual map grid squares, then updates these as the search progresses. Initial probability input is required for the grid squares, and these probabilities made use of the fact that a local fisherman, Francisco Simó Orts,[3] popularly known since then as "Paco el de la bomba" ("Bomb Frankie"),[8] witnessed the bomb entering the water at a certain location. Orts was contacted by the U.S. Air Force to assist in the search operation.

After a search that continued for 80 days following the crash, the bomb was located by the DSV Alvin on March 17th. The bomb was brought to the surface by USS Petrel (ASR-14). While serving on the salvage ship USS Hoist (ARS-40) during recovery operations, Navy diver Carl Brashear had his leg crushed in a deck accident. His story was the inspiration for the 2000 Cuba Gooding, Jr. film Men of Honor.[9]

Once the bomb had been located, Simó Orts appeared at the First District Federal Court building in New York City with his lawyer, Herbert Brownell, formerly Attorney General of the United States under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, claiming salvage rights on the recovered hydrogen bomb. According to Craven:[10]

It is customary maritime law that the person who identifies the location of a ship to be salved has the right to a salvage award if that identification leads to a successful recovery. The amount is nominal, usually 1 or 2 percent, sometimes a bit more, of the intrinsic value to the owner of the thing salved. But the thing salved off Palomares was a hydrogen bomb, the same bomb valued by no less an authority than the Secretary of Defense at $2 billion—each percent of which is, of course, $20 million.

The Air Force settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.[3]

[edit] Contamination

At 10:40 a.m. UTC, the accident was reported at the 16th Air Force Command Post, and it was confirmed at 11:22. The commander of the U.S. Air Force at Torrejon air base, Spain, Major General Delmar E. Wilson, immediately travelled to the scene of the accident with a Disaster Control Team. Further Air Force personnel were dispatched later the same day, including nuclear experts from U.S. government laboratories.[11]

The first weapon to be discovered was found nearly intact. However, the conventional explosives from the other two bombs that fell on land detonated (essentially what has come to be referred to as a dirty bomb), causing contamination with uranium and plutonium of 2 square kilometres (0.8 sq mi) of land. 1,750 short tons (1,590 M/T) of contaminated material were excavated and sent for disposal at the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina, USA.

To defuse alarm of contamination, the Spanish minister for information and tourism Manuel Fraga and the US ambassador Angier Biddle Duke swam on nearby beaches in front of press. First the ambassador and some companions swam at Mojácar (a resort 15 km (9 mi) away) and then Duke and Fraga swam at the Quitapellejos beach in Palomares.

[edit] Recent events

In 2004, a study revealed that there was still some significant contamination present in certain areas, and the Spanish government subsequently expropriated some plots of land which would otherwise have been slated for agriculture use or housing construction.[12] In early October 2006, the Spanish and United States governments agreed to decontaminate the remaining areas and share the workload and costs, which are hitherto unknown as it first needs to be determined to what extent leaching of the plutonium has occurred in the 40 years since the incident.

On October 11, 2006, Reuters reported that higher than normal levels of radiation were detected in snails and other wildlife in the region, indicating there may still be dangerous amounts of radioactive material underground. The discovery occurred during an investigation being carried out by Spain's energy research agency CIEMAT and the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. and Spain have agreed to share the cost of the initial investigation, set to begin in November, but according to a U.S. embassy spokesman in Spain responsibility for clean up costs is yet to be agreed upon.

In April 2008, CIEMAT announced they had found two trenches, totalling 2,000 cubic meters volume, where the U.S. Army stored contaminated earth during the 1966 operations. The American government agreed in 2004 to pay for the decontamination of the grounds, and the cost of the removal and transportation of the contaminated earth has been estimated at $2 million. The trenches were found near the cemetery, where one of the nuclear devices was retrieved in 1966, and they were probably dug at the last moment by American troops before leaving Palomares. CIEMAT expects to find remains of plutonium and americium once an exhaustive analysis of the earth is carried out.[13] [14]

[edit] Political consequences

Four days after the accident, the Spanish government stated that "the Palomares incident was evidence of the dangers created by NATO's use of the Gibraltar airstrip", announcing that NATO aircraft would no longer be permitted to fly over Spanish territory either to or from Gibraltar.[15]

Palomares and another accident involving nuclear bombers two years later near Thule Air Base, in Greenland, led the U.S. Department of Defense to announce that it would be "re-examining the military need" for continuing the so-called Airborne Alert Indoctrinal Training Program.[16]

[edit] Disposition of intact bombs

The casings of two B28 nuclear bombs involved in the Palomares incident are on display at the National Atomic Museum, in Albuquerque, NM
The casings of two B28 nuclear bombs involved in the Palomares incident are on display at the National Atomic Museum, in Albuquerque, NM

The empty casings of two of the bombs involved in this incident are now on display in the National Atomic Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico.[4]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e Hayes, Ron. "H-bomb incident crippled pilot's career", Palm Beach Post, January 17, 2007. Retrieved on 2006-05-24. 
  2. ^ Maydew, Randall C.. America's Lost H-Bomb: Palomares, Spain, 1966. Sunflower University Press. ISBN 978-0897452144. 
  3. ^ a b c d e Long, Tony (January 17, 2008). Jan. 17, 1966: H-Bombs Rain Down on a Spanish Fishing Village. WIRED. Retrieved on 2008-02-16.
  4. ^ a b c Moran, Barbara (Fall 2004). The Day They Lost the H-bomb—and How They Got It Back. Invention & Technology. Retrieved on 2008-02-16.
  5. ^ a b c Megara, John. Dropping Nuclear Bombs on Spain, The Palomares Accident of 1966 and the U.S. Airborne Alert (PDF). Florida State University. Retrieved on 2008-02-17.
  6. ^ a b Lewis, Flora (1967). One of Our H-Bombs is Missing. McGraw-Hill. OCLC 784834. 
  7. ^ Staff (2003). Broken Arrow. National Atomic Museum. Retrieved on 2008-02-14.
  8. ^ Staff. "Francisco Simó, 'Paco el de la bomba' de Palomares", El País, August 9, 2003. Retrieved on 2006-05-24. (Spanish) 
  9. ^ Dorsey, Jack; Washington, Jim. "Pioneering Navy diver Carl Brashear dies in Portsmouth", The Virginian-Pilot, July 26, 2006. Retrieved on 2008-02-19. 
  10. ^ Craven, John Piña (2001). The Silent War. Simon and Schuster, pp. 174-175. ISBN 978-0684872131. 
  11. ^ Oskins, James C.; Maggelet, Michael H. (2008). Broken Arrow - The Declassified History of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Accidents. Lulu.com. ISBN 1435703618. 
  12. ^ Bejarano, José. "La maldición de Palomares", La Vanguardia, November 19, 2004. (Spanish) 
  13. ^ Méndez, Rafael. "España halla las zanjas radiactivas que EE UU ocultó en Palomares", El País, April 10, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-04-12. (Spanish) 
  14. ^ h.b. (April 10, 2008). Spain finds trenches of radioactive earth buried at Palomares. typicallyspanish.com. Retrieved on 2008-04-12.
  15. ^ "Spain bans overflying by NATO", The Times, January 22, 1966, pp. 8a. 
  16. ^ Finney, John W.. "U.S. Reviews Need for H-Bomb Alert", New York Times, February 28, 1968, pp. 1. 

[edit] Book references

  • Lewis, Flora (1987). One of Our H-Bombs is Missing. Bantam. ISBN 978-0553264838. 
  • Maggelet, Michael H.; James C. Oskins (2008). Broken Arrow- The Declassified History of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Accidents. Bantam. ISBN 978-1-4357-0361-2. 

[edit] External links

  • (German) n-tv: Atomkatastrophe von 1966 - USA und Spanien entseuchen. Web posted and retrieved 2006-OCT-8.

Coordinates: 37°14′57″N, 1°47′49″W