Broken Arrows

Last week I planned on doing a proper review of Civilization: Beyond Earth this week, but as it happens, the flu that struck me down did it's job properly. As a result, I've not had the energy to play. Thus I'm postponing the review until a later date.

Instead we're going to take a look at Broken Arrow. No, not the 1996 action movie in which John Travolta plays a villain with a passion for Volvo’s and Christian Slater fumbles around as an unlikely hero. Instead we're going to take a look at the real life phenomenon of Broken Arrow, in which the United States have managed to accidentally drop actual nuclear weapons. Today's post will only concern U.S. nukes, partially because it's their terminology but also because other nations with nuclear armaments seem to be better at keeping it a secret when they loose them. If they lose them. They probably do.

All in all, you would think that one would take a certain amount of care with any device that can level most of a city in one godlike eruption of primal energy, but the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) freely admits that they've had thirty-two Broken Arrow incidents. Sure, a couple of them have been Bent Spear incidents, meaning that the weapons weren't actually dropped or lost, they've just been temporarily misplaced or transported without any of the care with which you really aught to take. But 32 times is pretty irresponsible. Like mothers the world over have said: “if you can't play properly, you can't have any nukes at all”.

One day in 1958, March 11th to be precise, a Boeing B-47E-LM Stratojet flew over the sleepy farming community of Mars Bluff, South Carolina on it's way to an exercise in England. The Captain was doing some routine check-ups when he accidentally managed to drop his payload. Said payload was a Mark VI nuke that landed right on Walter Gregg's house. Now luckily the bomb was not armed for it's nuclear role, but it still contained thousands of pounds of regular explosives (required to set off the nuclear chain-reaction). No one was hurt amazingly enough, and Mr. Gregg got to sue the Air Force for $54.000. ($500.000 in today's money)

The bombing may have been an accident, but since the mission was an accuracy test, it can perhaps be seen as a success?

Also in 1958, a B-47 bomber collided with an F-86 fighter over Georgia. Damaged, the crew had to dump the bomb in order to land safely. But when they went out to find their 3500 kg nuke, they couldn't find it. In fact, no one has ever found it. It rests somewhere in the Georgia swamps just waiting for someone to snag it with a fishing line. It was thiiiiiis big...

In San Antonio, Texas you can find the Medina Base, a lovely little place where they used to disarm obsolete nukes. Can't just leave them laying about, right?

Anyway, in 1963, the stockpile blew up, all 56.000 kg of it. Not as it happens the nukey bits, as they were kept elsewhere, but all the conventional materials. The kicker? Three men were hurt a little bit, and that's it! All that bang and no injuries worth talking about.

In 1966 a B-52G bomber was attempting to refuel in midair. Midair above Spain as it happened, when the two planes collided and were annihilated. This caused the B-52's four H-bombs to, you know, fall out of the sky. Two were fine, they recovered them with no problem. What of the other other two? They went kaboom, but not as actual mushroom clouds. The bombs did irradiated a 2.5 square kilometer area near Palomares, but no one was killed or even hurt. Again!

One of the bombs that were intact fell into the Mediterranean Sea and was found by a local fisherman, Francisco Simo Ortis. This was a lucky day for Mr. Ortis, since maritime law states that the finder of salvage is entitled to 1% of the total value of the find. An MK28 bomb was worth $2 billion back in '66 so he asked for a cool $20 million. He settled for an unknown sum. Not a bad catch either way.

There have been many other Broken Arrows, including one on Greenland of all places, but I think these are enough for today.

Until next time, have a kick-ass week!