<story><title>The U.S. military is missing six nuclear weapons (2021)</title><url>https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/us-military-missing-six-nuclear-weapons-180032</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>coolspot</author><text>&amp;gt; two hydrogen bombs dropped over North Carolina, one comes close to detonation&lt;p&gt;I think this part is BS. Nuclear weapons don’t detonate on accident, it requires delicate synchronized process, guarded by authorization codes which aren’t normally present on the launch platform itself.
Without authorization codes a nuclear weapon is just a big slightly radioactive pile of metal.</text></item><item><author>lelandfe</author><text>Looking up broken arrow incidents is pretty horrifying. Wikipedia&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;military nuclear accidents&amp;quot; list isn&amp;#x27;t even a full list - just notable ones - and it&amp;#x27;s still absurdly long: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_military_nuclear_accidents&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_military_nuclear_accid...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;July 28, 1957, two nukes jettisoned from airplane into the Atlantic, never recovered. February 5, 1958, bomber collides mid-air, jettisons nuke off coast of Georgia, never recovered. July 6, 1959, cargo plane crashes on takeoff, explosives do not go off in the fire. January 24, 1961, bomber catches fire while in air, two hydrogen bombs dropped over North Carolina, one comes close to detonation.&lt;p&gt;And on, and on, and on. America in the Cold War kept nuclear weapons continuously aloft along the Soviet border, but the program experienced so many crashes that it had to be scuttled. In the final one, the nuclear payload ruptured: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>tikhonj</author><text>I rather enjoyed reading &lt;i&gt;Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety&lt;/i&gt; which covers a few of these events in more detail, as well as the 1980 Damascus Titan missile explosion[1] and some broader history about the security and management of US nuclear weapons.&lt;p&gt;[1]: The missile itself exploded, not its nuclear payload. See Wikipedia for an overview: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;1980_Damascus_Titan_missile_explosion&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;1980_Damascus_Titan_missile_ex...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lelandfe</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;One simple, dynamo-technology low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe!&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;[the] bomb did not possess adequate safety... The unalterable conflusion is that the only effective safing device during airborne alert was the ready-safe switch&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;If a short to an &amp;quot;arm&amp;quot; line occurred in a mid-air breakup, a postulate that seems credible, the Mk 39 Mod 2 bomb could have given a nuclear burst.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.documentcloud.org&amp;#x2F;documents&amp;#x2F;796426-goldsboro-revisited-pp-1-2-copy.html#document&amp;#x2F;p2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.documentcloud.org&amp;#x2F;documents&amp;#x2F;796426-goldsboro-rev...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Parker Jones, nuclear weapons safety specialist at Sandia National Laboratories in a formerly-classified 1969 document obtained by FOIA in 2013. Request was actually made by Eric Schlosser during his writing of &lt;i&gt;Command and Control&lt;/i&gt;, the book GP mentions: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;interactive&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;sep&amp;#x2F;20&amp;#x2F;goldsboro-revisited-declassified-document&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;interactive&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;sep&amp;#x2F;20&amp;#x2F;go...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>The U.S. military is missing six nuclear weapons (2021)</title><url>https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/us-military-missing-six-nuclear-weapons-180032</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>coolspot</author><text>&amp;gt; two hydrogen bombs dropped over North Carolina, one comes close to detonation&lt;p&gt;I think this part is BS. Nuclear weapons don’t detonate on accident, it requires delicate synchronized process, guarded by authorization codes which aren’t normally present on the launch platform itself.
Without authorization codes a nuclear weapon is just a big slightly radioactive pile of metal.</text></item><item><author>lelandfe</author><text>Looking up broken arrow incidents is pretty horrifying. Wikipedia&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;military nuclear accidents&amp;quot; list isn&amp;#x27;t even a full list - just notable ones - and it&amp;#x27;s still absurdly long: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_military_nuclear_accidents&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_military_nuclear_accid...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;July 28, 1957, two nukes jettisoned from airplane into the Atlantic, never recovered. February 5, 1958, bomber collides mid-air, jettisons nuke off coast of Georgia, never recovered. July 6, 1959, cargo plane crashes on takeoff, explosives do not go off in the fire. January 24, 1961, bomber catches fire while in air, two hydrogen bombs dropped over North Carolina, one comes close to detonation.&lt;p&gt;And on, and on, and on. America in the Cold War kept nuclear weapons continuously aloft along the Soviet border, but the program experienced so many crashes that it had to be scuttled. In the final one, the nuclear payload ruptured: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>tikhonj</author><text>I rather enjoyed reading &lt;i&gt;Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety&lt;/i&gt; which covers a few of these events in more detail, as well as the 1980 Damascus Titan missile explosion[1] and some broader history about the security and management of US nuclear weapons.&lt;p&gt;[1]: The missile itself exploded, not its nuclear payload. See Wikipedia for an overview: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;1980_Damascus_Titan_missile_explosion&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;1980_Damascus_Titan_missile_ex...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ms512</author><text>The book referenced in the original comment (Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety) specifically digs in to the limitations behind the safety mechanisms.&lt;p&gt;Specific to the incident here, only 1 of 4 safety mechanisms prevented an catastrophic incident. The details in the wikipedia page [1] about this incident is well worth a read.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>