1968 thule air base b‑52 crash
Vantine, Harry C.; Crites, Thomas R. (26 March 2003). [89], A monitor checks a pump operator for radiation contamination during Project Crested Ice, Danish workers involved in the clean-up operation claimed long-term health problems resulted from their exposure to the radiation. [50], In 1987â88 and again in 2000, reports surfaced in the Danish press that one of the bombs had not been recovered. As of November 2008, the case has been unsuccessful. The fission material in the weapons consisted mostly of uranium 235, while the radioactive debris consists of at least two different "source terms". This page was last edited on 27 March 2013, at 04:34 (UTC). [102] Research conducted in 2003 concluded, "Plutonium in the marine environment at Thule presents an insignificant risk to man. Investigators are searching the area eight miles west of Thule for radioactive debris. [36] Despite the cold, dark Arctic winter, there was considerable pressure to complete the clean-up operation before the sea ice melted in the spring and deposited further contaminants into the sea. [10] The bomber crew consisted of five regular crew members, including Captain John Haug, the aircraft commander. The findings triggered research by scientists in the United States into safer conventional explosives and fireproof casings for nuclear weapons. [88], The report also confirmed that the U.S. stockpiled nuclear weapons in Greenland until 1965, contradicting assurances by Danish foreign minister Niels Helveg Petersen that the weapons were in Greenland's airspace, but never on the ground. [54] A much bigger operation at Palomares off the coast of Spain two years earlier led to the successful recovery of a lost nuclear weapon from the Mediterranean Sea; the B28FI bomb was lost for 80 days after a mid-air collision between a B-52 on a "Chrome Dome" mission and its refueling KC-135 Stratotanker. [68] Consequently, on 30 September 1971, the two superpowers signed the "Agreement on Measures to Reduce the Risk of Nuclear War". This assignment was without the knowledge of civilian authorities in the United States, who SAC determined did not have the "need to know" about specific operational points. 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 Crash On January 21, 1968, a B-52G Stratofortress with the callsign "HOBO 28" from the 380th Strategic Bomb Wing at Plattsburgh Air Force Base, New York was assigned the "Hard Head" mission over Thule and nearby Baffin Bay. The Air Force B-52 Stratofortress with four hydrogen bombs on board crashed Jan. 21, 1968, 7 miles from Thule Air Base, where the Danes were working for a military contractor from Denmark. Also aboard were a substitute navigator (Captain Curtis R. Criss) and a mandatory third pilot (Major Alfred D'Mario)… Ambassador, K.E. (2/16/21), #67 – The 1976 Iran UFO Incident – The Case That Started it All (1/30/21), #66 - Inside the Release of the CIA’s UFO Records (1/16/21), #65 - Luis Elizondo & John Greenewald, Jr. – 1 on 1 (1/3/21), #64 - Cover-up at Guantanamo – Special Guest: Jeffrey S. Kaye (12/18/20), #63 - The “Leaked” UFO Photo. The conventional explosives aboard detonated and the nuclear payload ruptured, resulting in radioactive contamination of the area. The obligations of Denmark towards the workers and the population likely to be affected by the accident could only flow from national legislation. They awaited word from D'Mario that they were over land, and when he confirmed that the aircraft was directly over the lights of Thule Air Base, the four crewmen ejected, followed shortly thereafter by Haug and D'Mario. He told Thule air traffic control that he had a fire on board and requested permission to perform an emergency landing at the air base. [4] Beginning in 1961, B-52 bombers also flew secret "Hard Head" missions (or "Thule Monitor Missions") over Thule Air Base with the purpose of maintaining visual surveillance of the base's strategically important Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS), which provided early warning of Soviet missile launches. Hansen followed up the discussion with an infamous letter pointing out that the issue of "supplies of munition of a special kind" was not raised during the discussion, but that he had nothing further to add. Manually bailing out of a B-52 presented a special hazard that a person might not think about. "[97], The Danish government rejected a link between the accident and long-term health issues. [11] Captain Criss, who was first to eject, landed 6 miles (9.7 km) from the baseâhe remained lost on an ice floe for 21 hours and suffered hypothermia in the â23 °F (â31 °C) temperatures,[11] but he survived by wrapping himself in his parachute. He explained the logic behind the decision to abandon the search: "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. Satellite verification and monitoring were not possible at the time. The country joined the European Atomic Energy Community in 1973, and is therefore not legally bound by the European treaty with respect to events in 1968: "When the accident occurred, Denmark was not a Member State and could not therefore be considered as being bound by the Community legislation applicable at that time. [lower-alpha 3] The conventional high explosive (HE) components of four 1.1 megaton[20] B28FI model hydrogen bombs detonated on impact, spreading radioactive material over a large area in a manner similar to a dirty bomb. Six crew members ejected safely, but one who did not have an ejection seat was killed while trying to bail out. Its unique vantage point - perched at the top of the world - has meant that Thule Air Base has been of immense strategic importance to the US since it was built in the early 1950s, allowing a radar to scan the skies … [3][4] These bombers gave SAC offensive capability in the event of a Soviet first strike,[5] and provided a significant Cold War nuclear deterrent. [44] The Danes also requested that the nuclear material not be left in Greenland after the cleanup operation was complete, therefore requiring General Hunziker to remove the contaminated ice and wreckage to the United States for disposal. [6], In 1966, United States Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara proposed cutting "Chrome Dome" flights because the BMEWS system was fully operational, the bombers had been made redundant by missiles, and $123 million ($894 million as of 2021) could be saved. [36], The incident caused controversy at the time and in the years since. [6] Because of a heater malfunction, the air barely cooled as it traveled from the engine manifold to the cabin's heating ducts. The boxes were moved to a holding area near Thule Air Base known as the "Tank Farm". They every now have most cancers and blame their diseases on publicity to weapons-grade plutonium scattered by the crash. [63] The accident, which occurred two years after the Palomares crash, signaled the immediate end of the airborne alert program, which had become untenable because of the political and operational risks involved. 1968 B-52 Crash at Thule Air Base Discussion in 'The Okie Corral' started by GeorgiaGlocker, Oct 19, 2020. [90] It is also possible that they were exposed to radiation in the local atmosphere. For more than four decades, the official American and Danish explanations have consistently stated that all four nuclear 608. From missile-guiding pigeons to mine-detecting dolphins, animals have long … [52] One of the declassified documentsâdated to January 1968âdetails a blackened section of ice which had refrozen with shroud lines from a weapon parachute: "Speculate something melted through the ice such as burning primary or secondary. "Dr. Freezelove" is an apparent play on words of the 1964 film ". The gunner (center), SSgt Calvin Snapp, is rescued after ejecting onto the ice, Haug and D'Mario parachuted onto the grounds of the air base and made contact with the base commander within ten minutes of each other. The 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash was an accident on 21 January 1968, involving a United States Air Force B-52 bomber. The documents revealed that USAF personnel involved in the clean-up were not subsequently monitored for health problems, despite the likelihood of greater exposure to radiation than the Danes. 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 … [21] "Weak links" in the weapon design ensured that a nuclear explosion was not triggered. [43], Contaminated ice being loaded into steel tanks at Thule during Project Crested Ice, The USAF worked with Danish nuclear scientists to consider the clean-up options. [67], According to Greenpeace, the United States and U.S.S.R. were concerned enough by accidents such as the 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash, the 1966 Palomares B-52 crash and the Thule accident that they agreed to take measures to ensure that a future nuclear accident would not lead the other party to conclude incorrectly that a first strike was under way. His seat was taken by the spare pilot, D'Mario. On 21 January 1968, an aircraft accident (sometimes known as the Thule affair or Thule accident (/ËtuËliË/ TOO-lee); Danish language: Thuleulykken The petitioners claimed that Denmark's failure to comply with the rulings led to delays in detecting their illnesses, resulting in worsened prognoses. They also determined that the electrical circuits of the weapons' safety devices became unreliable in a fire and allowed connections to short circuit. [60], The United States Air Force monitored airborne contamination through nasal swabs of onsite personnel. Oskins, James C.; Maggelet, Michael H. (2008). The "source term" is the measure of radioactive contamination released during an accident. The extreme heat generated by the burning of 225,000 pounds of aviation fuel during the five to six hours after the crash melted the ice sheet, causing wreckage and munitions to sink to the ocean floor. [93][96] In 2008, the Association of Former Thule Workers took the case to the European courts. [90] Many of the workers surveyed in the years following Project Crested Ice reported health problems. [41] The line was subsequently used to control decontamination of personnel and vehicles. The crash of a B-52 in Greenland on Jan. 21, 1968, marked one of the U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command’s worst “Broken Arrow” nuclear incidents of the Cold War. "[95] The workers said the lack of proof was attributable to the lack of appropriate medical monitoring. Workers involved in the clean-up program have been campaigning for compensation for radiation-related illnesses they experienced in the years after the incident. USAF Strategic Air Command "Chrome Dome" operations were discontinued immediately after the incident, which highlighted the safety and political risks of the missions. Defenses", http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://cndyorks.gn.apc.org/yspace/articles/greenland3.htm, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7720466.stm, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7720049.stm, "Foreign Relations of the United States 1964â1968, Volume XII, Western Europe: Denmark", http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v12/ch1, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/ops/broken-arrow.htm, "Danish Prime Minister Gives Tacit Go-Ahead For U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Greenland", http://web.archive.org/web/20071106145717/http://www.nautilus.org/archives/library/security/foia/DKhansen57.html, "Secrecy on a Sliding Scale: U.S. Nuclear Weapons Deployments And Danish Non-Nuclear Policy", http://web.archive.org/web/20071231130921/http://www.nautilus.org/archives/nukepolicy/Denmark/index.html, "Following Bomber Crash, U.S. Copenhagen Embassy Urges State Department To Lie About Flight Route", "Arctic atomic bomb should be examined again", http://politiken.dk/politik/ECE624896/arktisk-atombombe-skal-undersoeges-igen/, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/878907.stm, "The Greenpeace book of the nuclear age; The hidden history â the human cost", http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA283578&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6647421.stm, "Risø examine radiation at the Thule base", http://politiken.dk/indland/article597710.ece, "The History of Nuclear Weapon Safety Devices", http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/671923-JYRvMV/webviewable/671923.pdf, "Project Crested Ice: The Thule Accident", "Thule Nuclear Weapons Accident: Dose Evaluation Report", http://web.archive.org/web/20120217071618/http://airforcemedicine.afms.mil/latestnews/body.pdf, "Relevance of Nuclear Weapons Clean-up Experience to Dirty Bomb Response", http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/https://eed.llnl.gov/ans/2002/vantine/vantine_ans_2002.pdf, http://books.google.com/books?id=VYI3AAAACAAJ, 1968 photos of Thule Air Base and surrounds, Underwater photos from the Star III submarine, Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, Declassified US government video of clean-up operation, National Institute for Radiation Protection (Denmark), https://military.wikia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash?oldid=4972714, Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls. "[52][lower-alpha 5] A July 1968 report states, "An analysis by the AEC of the recovered secondary components indicates recovery of 85% of the uranium and 94%, by weight, of three secondaries. [59] The search also revealed a weapon cable fairing, polar cap, and a one-foot by three-foot section of a warhead's ballistic case. [76], Denmark's nuclear-free zone policy originated in 1957, when the coalition government decided in the lead-up to the Paris NATO summit not to stockpile nuclear weapons on its soil in peacetime. 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. [48] Debris from the weapons was sent to the Pantex plant in Texas for evaluation,[17] and the tanks were shipped to Savannah River in South Carolina. [10][17] As the situation worsened, the captain realized he would not be able to land the aircraft and told the crew to prepare to abandon it. [9][15], Thule Air Base in the foreground with North Star Bay, which was covered in sea ice at the time of the accident, in the background, At 15:22 EST, about six hours into the flight and 90 miles (140 km) south of Thule Air Base, Haug declared an emergency. [101] The main conclusions were: plutonium has not moved from the contaminated sediments into the surface water in the shelf sea; the debris has been buried to a great depth in the sediment as a result of biological activity; transfer of plutonium to benthic biota is low. [11][24], An aerial survey of the crash site immediately afterwards showed only six engines, a tire and small items of debris on the blackened surface of the ice. 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 .
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