Declassified document: US narrowly escaped nuclear blast in 1961 H-bomb accident
By Associated Press, Updated: Saturday, September 21, 6:09 AM
LONDON — A U.S. hydrogen bomb nearly detonated on the nation’s east coast, with a single switch averting a blast which would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that flattened Hiroshima, a newly published book says.
In a recently declassified document, reported in a new book by Eric Schlosser, the supervisor of the nuclear weapons safety department at Sandia national laboratories said that one simple, vulnerable switch prevented nuclear catastrophe.
The Guardian newspaper published the document (http://bit.ly/1fi4Y2S) on Saturday.
Two hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over Goldsboro, North Carolina on Jan. 24, 1961, after a B-52 bomber broke up in flight. One of the bombs apparently acted as if it was being armed and fired — its parachute opened and trigger mechanisms engaged.
(More here.)
LONDON — A U.S. hydrogen bomb nearly detonated on the nation’s east coast, with a single switch averting a blast which would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that flattened Hiroshima, a newly published book says.
In a recently declassified document, reported in a new book by Eric Schlosser, the supervisor of the nuclear weapons safety department at Sandia national laboratories said that one simple, vulnerable switch prevented nuclear catastrophe.
The Guardian newspaper published the document (http://bit.ly/1fi4Y2S) on Saturday.
Two hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over Goldsboro, North Carolina on Jan. 24, 1961, after a B-52 bomber broke up in flight. One of the bombs apparently acted as if it was being armed and fired — its parachute opened and trigger mechanisms engaged.
(More here.)
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