On 21 January 1968, an aircraft accident involving a United States Air Force (USAF) B-52 bomber occurred near Thule Air Base in the Danish territory of Greenland. The aircraft was carrying four hydrogen bombs on a Cold War”Chrome Dome” alert mission over Baffin Bay when a cabin fire forced the crew to abandon the aircraft before they could carry out an emergency landing at Thule Air Base. Six crew members ejected safely, but one who did not have an ejection seat was killed while trying to bail out. The bomber crashed onto sea ice in North Star Bay, Greenland, causing the conventional explosives aboard to detonate and the nuclear payload to rupture and disperse, which resulted in radioactive contamination.
The United States and Denmark launched an intensive clean-up and recovery operation, but the secondary stage of one of the nuclear weapons could not be accounted for after the operation completed. USAF Strategic Air Command “Chrome Dome” operations were discontinued immediately after the accident, which highlighted the safety and political risks of the missions. Safety procedures were reviewed and more stable explosives were developed for use in nuclear weapons. (Description of event courtesy of Wikipedia)
This post was published on March 31, 2021 5:20 am
Newly released Department of Defense records reveal the prolonged and often frustrating prepublication review process…
Newly released Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) documents obtained by The Black Vault under FOIA case…
Background The Central Intelligence Agency was created in 1947 with the signing of the National…
The Department of Defense (DOD) has released, in full, the exact text of the “Verbal…
A released Department of Defense document, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, provides a…
Background Welcome to the FBI Files on Journalists and their Periodicals archive on The Black…