Lost nuclear weapons
From MysteryWiki
Since the first known successful nuclear test on 16 July 1945, a total of nine countries have stockpiled around 15,000 nuclear weapons. Of those, a few have been termed "Broken Arrows." That is, that the weapon involved may have been accidentally launched, fired, detonated, stolen, or simply lost. This article will cover the last two cases, where the nuclear weapon in question was stolen or lost. Individual cases will be organized by host country and then by date lost/stolen.
Background
List of Lost Weapons by Country
Soviet Union and Russia
- 7 April 1989: About 300 miles north of the Norwegian coast, the Komsomolets, a Soviet nuclear-powered attack submarine, caught fire and sank. The vessel's nuclear reactor, two nuclear-armed torpedoes, and 42 of the 69 crew members on-board were lost.
United States
- 13 February 1950: A simulated nuclear bomb containing TNT and uranium (but no plutonium, the necessary ingredient to creating a nuclear explosion) was dumped at sea off the coast of British Columbia after a B-36 bomber's engines caught fire during a test of its ability to carry nuclear payloads. The bomber eventually crashed, but when the wreckage was searched, no bomb was found.
- 10 March 1956: A USAF B-47 Stratojet, AF Ser. No. 52-534, on a non-stop mission from MacDill Air Force Base in Florida to an overseas base descended into a cloud formation at 14,000 feet over the Mediterranean in preparation for an in-air refueling. It vanished while carrying two nuclear weapon cores. Neither the cores nor any other wreckage were ever recovered. The bomber was USAF B-36 bomber, AF Ser. No. 44-92075.
- 28 July 1957: A USAF C-124 aircraft from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware was carrying three nuclear bombs over the Atlantic Ocean when the aircraft experienced a loss of power. For their own safety, the crew jettisoned two of the three nuclear bombs, which were never recovered.
- 5 February 1958: A USAF B-47 bomber jettisoned a Mark 15 Mod 0 nuclear bomb over the Atlantic Ocean after a midair collision with a USAF F-86 Sabre during a simulated combat mission from Homestead Air Force Base in Florida.
- 25 September 1959: A United States Navy P5M antisubmarine aircraft with an unarmed nuclear depth charge on-board crash-landed into Puget Sound near Whidbey Island, Washington. The nuclear weapon was not recovered.
- 5 December 1965: A United States Navy A-4E Skyhawk aircraft with one B43 nuclear bomb on-board fell off the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga into 4,900 meter (16,200 feet) of water while the ship was underway from Vietnam to Yokosuka, Japan. Neither the plane, the pilot, nor the weapon were recovered.
- 22 May 1968: The U.S. submarine USS Scorpion (SSN-589) sank while en route from Rota, Spain to Norfolk, Virginia. The cause of the sinking remains unknown and all 99 officers and men on-board were killed. The wreckage, the S5W nuclear reactor, and the two Mark 45 torpedos with W34 nuclear warheads likely remain on the seafloor, more than 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) deep.
External Links
- 8 Nuclear Weapons the U.S. Has Lost - Mental Floss
- Broken Arrows: Nuclear Weapons Accidents - atomicarchive.com
- Dozens of Atomic Warheads Lost In Sea by Superpowers, Study Says - NYTimes.com
- The first atomic bomb test is successfully exploded - Jul 16, 1945 - HISTORY.com
- List of military nuclear accidents - Wikipedia
- Loose Nukes - Council on Foreign Relations
- A Nuclear Needle in a Haystack: The Cold War's Missing Atom Bombs - SPIEGEL ONLINE
- World Nuclear Weapons Stockpile - Ploughshares Fund
Discussion
References
No adequate sources have been found so far.