A B-52 crashed near Thule Air Base in 1968
| A B-52 crashed near Thule Air Base in 1968 | |
|---|---|
 A B-52G in flight, same type as the aircraft involved in the accident |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Fire in flight |
| place | 12.1 km west of Thule Air Base ( location ) |
| date | January 21, 1968 |
| Fatalities | 1 |
| Survivors | 6th |
| Injured | 0 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | B-52 Stratofortress |
| operator | 380th Strategic Bomb Wing Strategic Air Command United States Air Force |
| Mark | 58-0188 |
| Surname | Hobo 28 |
| Departure airport | Plattsburgh Air Force Base |
| Destination airport | Plattsburgh Air Force Base |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
 
| |
Position of Thule Air Base on the west coast of Greenland |
The crash of a B-52 near the Thule Air Base took place on 21st January 1968 . In this accident, a crashed B-52 Stratofortress of the United States Air Force (USAF) near the Thule Air Base in Greenland from. There were four type B28 hydrogen bombs on board the aircraft, which was on a so-called “ Chrome Dome ” mission . A fire broke out on board the bomber over Baffin Bay, west of Greenland, which forced the crew to leave the aircraft. When the aircraft hit the surface of the water, the conventional explosive charges in the nuclear weapons were released, contaminating the surrounding area . Six of the seven crew members were able to save themselves, one was fatally injured while exiting the aircraft.
Denmark (of which Greenland is an autonomous part) and the United States of America launched a large-scale search and decontamination operation, but not all components of the four nuclear weapons could be recovered. This led to media reports reporting the loss of an entire weapon. However, this was refuted by a Danish investigation. The "Chrome Dome" flights carried out in preparation for a nuclear second strike were suspended by the USAF Strategic Air Command after the accident and led to the renewal of various safety regulations and changes to the warheads of the weapons carried.
Historical context
In 1960 the USAF Strategic Air Command (SAC) took up flights as part of Operation Chrome Dome . These missions, initiated by General Thomas S. Power, meant that B-52 Stratofortress armed with nuclear weapons would fly from their bases in the United States to the Soviet border with twelve machines in the air at all times. In the event of an escalating Cold War , both an offensive first strike and a second strike should be able to be carried out against the Soviet Union , despite bases already hit in the USA .
In 1961, the order was supplemented by hard-head missions (also known as Thule Monitor Missions ), which were flown to Thule Air Base to ensure that the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) stationed on Greenland was functional. The BMEWS was supposed to detect approaching Soviet long-range missiles and enable timely countermeasures and was connected to the North American Aerospace Defense Command via an undersea cable. Since this cable was often disturbed, the B-52 crews should visually ensure that the station was operating normally and otherwise take an offensive counter-attack.
US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara considered in 1966 to discontinue the Chrome Dome program because of annual costs of 123 million US dollars , especially since the surveillance flights had become superfluous thanks to more modern technology in the BMEWS. The SAC and the Joint Chiefs of Staff resisted these savings , so that the flights were not initially suspended, but only four aircraft were permanently in the air, one of them on a Thule Monitor mission . Civil authorities in the US had no information about the continuation of the program because the SAC kept it under lock and key. The danger of the Chrome Dome flights due to the fact that they were equipped with nuclear weapons had already come to light at this point in a crash in Palomares, Spain, in 1966.
Hobo 28
flight
On January 21, 1968, the task of the Thule Monitor Mission fell to a crew of the 380th Strategic Bomb Wing, which was stationed at Plattsburgh Air Force Base in New York State . The Boeing B-52G Stratofortress with the serial number 58-0188 and the callsign HOBO 28 had a minimum crew of five as well as an additional navigator and a third pilot, which were mandatory for Thule flights. The command of the machine was Captain John Haug.
The additional pilot, Major Alfred D'Mario, upholstered his seat prior to takeoff with three cushions that were placed directly over one of the air vents on his seat. The first section of the flight, the way to Thule, was unspectacular, only the automatic in-flight refueling on a KC-135 Stratotanker had to be carried out by hand as the autopilot was not fully functional.
About an hour after the in-flight refueling, the aircraft had already reached Baffin Bay, the two co-pilots changed places. D'Mario now took the right seat. Since the crew was still freezing despite the heating being fully turned on, D'Mario opened a bleed valve on one of the engines so that hot air was taken from the compressor and fed into the cabin. Due to a fault in the heating, the air was not cooled down and so flowed directly onto the cushions attached before the start. About half an hour later, one of the crew members noticed a smell of burning and began to search for the source of the fire. After the navigator had identified the source, he began to fight the fire with two fire extinguishers , but he failed.
crash
At 3:22 p.m. EST, Haug finally declared an air emergency and asked Thule air traffic control to allow an emergency landing on the military base. After five minutes, all five fire extinguishers on board were used up, at the same time the power went out and the cockpit continued to fill with smoke. After the crew could no longer read the instruments, Haug ordered the crew to prepare for a jump. As soon as the aircraft was over the mainland, six of the seven crew members saved themselves; Copilot Leonard Svitenko was fatally injured in the head while attempting to exit the aircraft through a hatch.
The now unmanned aircraft flew briefly northwards, then turned to the left and crashed at an angle of about 20 degrees about 7.5 miles west of Thule Air Base at 3:39 p.m. EST on ice drifting in North Star Bay . On impact, the detonators equipped with conventional explosives were triggered, so that the radioactive material contained in the bomb was distributed around the crash site , similar to a radiological weapon . At that time there were about 225,000 English in the tanks . Pounds of kerosene , which also caught fire instantly and slowly melted the ice on which the plane crashed. After six hours, the wreck and with it the ammunition sank to the sea floor .
Rescue operation and first search for the wreck
Haug and D'Amario landed on their parachutes at the air base and immediately alerted the airfield commander that at least six crew members had been able to save themselves and that the plane had four nuclear weapons on board. A large-scale search began immediately, initially mainly for the four remaining crew members. The Americans were supported by a representative from the Greenland Ministry of Commerce, Jens Zinglersen. So three more people could be rescued within two hours, they were less than 2.4 kilometers from the base. Only Captain Criss, who was the first to leave the plane, drifted on an ice floe for 21 hours before he was found. He was severely hypothermic and only survived because he was wrapped in his parachute .
For his help in rescuing the crew, Zinglersen received the Air Force Exceptional Civilian Service Medal from the American ambassador on February 26, 1968 .
The search for wreckage was less successful. Immediately after the crash and sinking of the wreck, only six of the eight engines, one tire and smaller parts could be found. The US armed forces categorized the accident with the code word " Broken Arrow " as a nuclear weapon accident.
Salvage ( Crested Ice Project )
The explosion spread debris from the aircraft and its armament over about 8 km². Parts of the bomb bay were found more than three kilometers away from the point of impact, from which it was concluded that the aircraft was already beginning to break up in the air. To the south of the point of impact, the ice was heavily contaminated, on the one hand by spilled and burned fuel JP-4 , on the other hand by the radioactive elements americium , plutonium , uranium and the hydrogen isotope tritium that had escaped from the warheads . The amount of plutonium was measured in part to be 380 mg / m².
American and Danish authorities therefore immediately initiated measures to contain the spread of radioactive materials and to find and dispose of the debris. This company got the name " Project Crested Ice " (for example: "climbed iceberg", sometimes also referred to as " Dr. Freezelove "). The weather made the efforts more difficult. The temperatures were only -40 ° Celsius and temporarily fell to -60 ° Celsius, plus winds of up to 40 m / s. Until February 14, 1968, the polar night also ruled the latitude Thules , which further hindered the search.
A base was set up near the crash site, Camp Hunziker , named after General Richard Hunziker, who led the recovery. From Thule Air Base, two paths were laid out to the camp, which consisted of igloos , generators, communication facilities and a heliport , so that work could be carried out at the crash site 24 hours a day. After the recovery, the contaminated material was brought to the USA at the insistence of the Danish government; According to General Hunziker, around 93% of the radioactive waste generated could be recovered and removed. Crested Ice was officially completed on September 13, 1968 , at an estimated cost of approximately $ 9.4 million. More than 70 US agencies with 700 specialists were involved in the project.
Controversy over the number of bombs recovered
| Nuclides | Half-life | Radiation type |
|---|---|---|
| Tritium | 12 years | Beta radiation |
| 234 uranium | 250,000 years | Alpha radiation |
| 235 uranium | 700 million years | Alpha radiation |
| 238 uranium | 4.5 billion years | Alpha radiation |
| 239 plutonium | 24,000 years | Alpha radiation |
| 240 plutonium | 6,600 years | Alpha radiation |
| 241 plutonium | 14 years | Beta radiation |
| 241 americium | 430 years | Alpha / gamma radiation |
It was claimed to the public that all four nuclear warheads from the B28 bombs had been recovered and disposed of. In 1987–1988 and again in 2000, however, articles appeared in the Danish press claiming that one of the four bombs on board the B-52 had not been recovered. The SAC, however, claimed in 1968 that all four bombs were destroyed in the crash and that the remains were recovered. In 2008, the BBC published an article that relied in part on classified reports from the period shortly after the crash and stated that only three bombs are certain to be recovered. William Chambers, American nuclear researcher, said:
"There was disappointment in what you might call a failure to return all of the components [...] it would be very difficult for anyone else to recover classified pieces if we couldn't find them."
“There was disappointment in what could be described as a failure to recover all of the components. It would be very difficult for anyone else to recover secret parts if we couldn't find them. "
In August 1968, a mini-submarine was used to find further remains of the bombs. A much larger search was started off the Spanish coast in 1966 after a B-52 collided with a tanker - one of the bombs had been missing for 80 days. Due to various defects, the search with the Star III was discontinued after a relatively short time, so that not the entire area in question could be searched for a bomb that might not have been recovered. Various official documents and a hearing from the US Atomic Energy Agency support the suspicion that one of the four warheads is still on the bottom of Baffin Bay .
As a consequence of the media reports, in 2009 the Danish Foreign Minister commissioned the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) to prepare a report on the crash. The DIIS was supposed to investigate whether the 348 documents (around 2,000 pages) obtained, which the BBC reporter Corera used for his report in 2008, contained information that deviated from the content of the 317 documents released by the US Department of Energy since 1986 . The report titled The Marshal's Baton - There is no bomb, there was no bomb, they were not looking for a bomb , ' The Marshal's Staff - There is no bomb, there was no bomb, they weren't looking for a bomb ' comes concluded that all four bombs were destroyed on impact. The amount of plutonium found by the USA is roughly the same as that from 4 nuclear weapons. Other bomb components were also recovered from all 4 weapons, such as B. the deuterium - tritium tanks as well as the parachute containers, so that the loss of a complete weapon can be excluded. However, an important component of a weapon was not found, which was probably the rod-shaped core made of highly enriched uranium from the fusion stage (“spark plug”). This is said to have been searched under the sea, but not found.
Image from Camp Hunziker
Aerial view of the crash site with ice colored black from the fire
Contaminated ice is loaded in steel tanks for transport to the USA.
Shot of type B-28 bombs like the one Hobo 28 had on board.
Mini-submarine Star III , which was used to find and recover sunken parts.
consequences
Chrome dome flights
After Hobo 28 crashed, the discussion about Chrome Dome flights started again. This was the second live nuclear weapon crash in two years. Scientist Scott Sagan described that if Hobo 28 had crashed onto the BMEWS, there would have been a risk of nuclear war. Since the connection to the station and the aircraft would have been broken, NORAD could have assumed a nuclear first strike by the Soviet Union, since only an unstable connection via an underwater cable would have been available. The US recognized this problem and replaced the cable connection with a satellite connection in 1974 .
In addition, on September 30, 1971, an agreement was reached with the Soviet Union to immediately exchange information on accidents involving nuclear weapons via the “ hot wire ” in order to reduce the risk of an “unintended” war.
The immediate cessation of Chrome Dome flights after the accident of 1968 also reflected the trend of manned nuclear weapons carriers away towards intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) resist. As early as 1964, these ICBMs made up the majority in the arms arsenal of the US armed forces.
Safety regulations when handling nuclear weapons
As with the crash of a B-52 in Palomares in 1966, the accident in Thule also revealed that the security of the nuclear weapons was not sufficient to withstand a crash. In both accidents, no nuclear chain reaction had been triggered, but the unstable conventional detonators had exploded, causing extensive damage to nature.
Investigations into the nuclear weapons after the crash also revealed that the electrical circuits in the weapons tended to short-circuit unpredictably when exposed to violence . As a result, efforts began to develop more stable detonators and fireproof housings for nuclear weapons in order to make the weapons safer.
In 1979 a new conventional explosive was installed for the detonators, which had been developed in the Los Alamos National Laboratory . According to the physicist Ray Kidder , the detonator, known as Insensitive High Explosive (IHE), would not have exploded the detonators in the Thule and Palomares accidents and thus would not have caused radioactive contamination.
compensation
The workforce involved in the salvage project included Danish workers who formed an interest group in 1986 because of increasing deaths and illnesses. Approximately 2,400 people (excluding Danish government scientists and US personnel) who were in the area from January to September 1968 received voluntary compensation from the Danish government. Further claims of the Danish workers against the European Commission were denied by the court.
reporting
In a book published in 2014 about the former Stern reporter Randy Braumann , it is vividly described how shortly after the accident the international press (20 US and 20 European media) was flown via Copenhagen to the US base in Thule to see the accident site and receive official press releases.
Movies
In 2015 the film The Idealist - Secret Files Greenland was released on the research of the Danish journalist Poul Brink , who discovered inconsistencies in the public representation 18 years after the incident.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Revealed: How US left nuclear warhead lying at bottom of ocean after B52 crash in 1968. In: Dailymail.co.uk. November 11, 2008, accessed February 2, 2014 .
- ↑ a b US military has been missing atomic bombs on Spiegel Online for 40 years
- ↑ Nathan Vanderklippe: The Crash, The Inuit, And The Bomb at uphere.ca , October 20, 2012, accessed on January 21, 2018.
- ↑ a b Svend Aage Christensen: There is no bomb, there was no bomb, they were not looking for a bomb . DIIS REPORT 2009: 18, accessed on January 21, 2018 (English / Danish).
- ↑ a b c The Airborne Alert Program Over Greenland at nukestrat.com
- ↑ a b c d 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 styrt at deersted.com
- ↑ Ronald E. Doel, Kristine C. Harper, Matthias Heymann (eds.): Exploring Greenland. Cold War Science and Technology on Ice . Springer, 2016, ISBN 978-1-137-59688-8 (English, limited preview in Google book search).
- ↑ Jeffrey T. Richelson: Defusing Armageddon. Inside NEST, America's Secret Nuclear Bomb Squad. WW Norton & Company, 2009, ISBN 978-0-393-24406-9 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
- ↑ a b Eric Schlosser: Command and Control. Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety . Penguin, 2013, ISBN 978-1-101-63866-8 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
- ↑ a b 'Broken Arrow' meets 'Erin Brockovich' in 'Thulegate' - at chemotherapists now! at cphpost.dk
- ↑ Petitions Committee of the European Parliament , report on the health consequences of the 1968 plane crash near Thule from April 23, 2007
- ↑ ECJ : Decision of January 12, 2011 in the Eriksen u. a./ Commission (Cases C ‑ 205/10 P, C ‑ 217/10 P, C ‑ 222/10 P), ECLI : EU: C: 2011: 10.
- ↑ Peter Chemnitz: Come on, fuck the dog! The Life of Star War Reporter Randy Braumann. Weltbuch-Verlag, Dresden 2013, ISBN 978-3-938706-43-5 .
- ^ Poul Brink: Journalist & Lawyer in The Idealist - Secret Files Greenland (2015) at journalistenfilme.de