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According the published reports (the Gaurdian and Huffington Post) two hydrogen bombs nearly exploded over North Carolina in 1961, after a B52 accident. The report notes that a "low voltage" safety prevented the explosions but that 3 other safety devices had failed to function.
Imagine the consequences if one or both of those bombs had exploded.
Imagine the consequences if one or both of those bombs had exploded.
The chance of two detonations would be very low, since whichever device detonated first would have destroyed the second device.
However, had the one bomb detonated there certainly would obviously have been consequences. The fact that it would have been a ground-burst would have mitigated the effects of the blast itself but contributed to significantly more fallout material.
The fireball radius would have been 3.3 miles.
The 20 PSI pressure radius would have been 4.5 miles, with near 100% fatalities.
The 5 PSI pressure radius would have been 9.2 miles, most residential buildings destroyed, 100% injuries, widespread fatalities.
The blast alone, before factoring in fallout, would have killed thousands.
Fallout would have been severe to the east, though one small saving grace of such an accident is that the location is 65 miles from the coast, beyond which much fallout would have settled into the open, uninhabited ocean. This contrasts to the fallout from the 100 atmospheric tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site, which produced fallout that spread across the continent to the east. None of these tests where even remotely close to the yield of the device that might have exploded in North Carolina - but there were a lot of them (100 - not to mention the single Trinity shot in New Mexico).
How big would the crater have been? I don't know, but the largest nuclear crater in the United States is at the Nevada Test Site and is 1280 feet in diameter (about a quarter mile). It was created in the Sedan Test, in which a 104-kiloton device was exploded 600 feet below the surface. The North Carolina devise was 3.8 megatons (about 37x the size of the Sedan device) and would have exploded at ground level. The Ivy Mike test in the Marshall Islands was an 11-megaton shot (about 3x the yield of the device in North Carolina) conducted at the surface, leaving a crater 6200 feet in diameter in the coral atoll.
Suffice it to say that there would now be an unusually round, unusually deep lake in eastern North Carolina.
The chance of two detonations would be very low, since whichever device detonated first would have destroyed the second device.
However, had the one bomb detonated there certainly would obviously have been consequences. The fact that it would have been a ground-burst would have mitigated the effects of the blast itself but contributed to significantly more fallout material.
The fireball radius would have been 3.3 miles.
The 20 PSI pressure radius would have been 4.5 miles, with near 100% fatalities.
The 5 PSI pressure radius would have been 9.2 miles, most residential buildings destroyed, 100% injuries, widespread fatalities.
The blast alone, before factoring in fallout, would have killed thousands.
Fallout would have been severe to the east, though one small saving grace of such an accident is that the location is 65 miles from the coast, beyond which much fallout would have settled into the open, uninhabited ocean. This contrasts to the fallout from the 100 atmospheric tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site, which produced fallout that spread across the continent to the east. None of these tests where even remotely close to the yield of the device that might have exploded in North Carolina - but there were a lot of them (100 - not to mention the single Trinity shot in New Mexico).
How big would the crater have been? I don't know, but the largest nuclear crater in the United States is at the Nevada Test Site and is 1280 feet in diameter (about a quarter mile). It was created in the Sedan Test, in which a 104-kiloton device was exploded 600 feet below the surface. The North Carolina devise was 3.8 megatons (about 37x the size of the Sedan device) and would have exploded at ground level. The Ivy Mike test in the Marshall Islands was an 11-megaton shot (about 3x the yield of the device in North Carolina) conducted at the surface, leaving a crater 6200 feet in diameter in the coral atoll.
Suffice it to say that there would now be an unusually round, unusually deep lake in eastern North Carolina.
The "nukemap" link is very interesting, thanks for the link. The only thing missing was a projection for fallout, but I assume the winds would have generally been blowing east, carrying the fallout over the Atlantic ocean.
Environmentally, an accident of this sort would have horrible for the east coast. Who knows what the political ramifications would have been, especially considering the political climate in 1961 (Cold War).
There is no way that leaders would have admitted fault "Oopsie! Sorry about that!" but would have much more likely blamed the Soviets. Where it would go from there is anyone's guess.
According the published reports (the Gaurdian and Huffington Post) two hydrogen bombs nearly exploded over North Carolina in 1961, after a B52 accident. The report notes that a "low voltage" safety prevented the explosions but that 3 other safety devices had failed to function.
Imagine the consequences if one or both of those bombs had exploded.
What consequences?
Do you people even know what you're taking about?
"Hydrogen Bomb" (snicker) eeeewww scary. I'm guessing the moron that wrote the article doesn't understand that thermo-nuclear and "hydrogen" are synonymous.
Worst case scenario is an impact [partial] ignition of the PBX resulting in a fire that releases plutonium particles into the atmosphere locally....spread limited to height of the fire (plus a few feet).
That would be an environmental disaster to be sure, but it would not result in full-scale detonation, and even if the burn-off caused partial detonation of the trigger, it wouldn't produce much in the way of heat or pressure (from gammas) to fuse hydrogen.
Well gee, I'm not a newkyouleer physicist, but it's obvious any locality would've been discombobulated somewhat if a nuke detonated most anywhere in the 48 states (except maybe parts of Nevada where my Dad was part of an above ground detonation test in 1956).
In 1958 while attending Taipei American School in Taiwan, one morning my 8th grade English teacher - a Mrs. Gregg - started class with the announcement that her family members were ok after the Air Farce had dropped a nuke in their back yard:
"Hydrogen Bomb" (snicker) eeeewww scary. I'm guessing the moron that wrote the article doesn't understand that thermo-nuclear and "hydrogen" are synonymous.
Worst case scenario is an impact [partial] ignition of the PBX resulting in a fire that releases plutonium particles into the atmosphere locally....spread limited to height of the fire (plus a few feet).
That would be an environmental disaster to be sure, but it would not result in full-scale detonation, and even if the burn-off caused partial detonation of the trigger, it wouldn't produce much in the way of heat or pressure (from gammas) to fuse hydrogen.
Atomically...
Mircea
Perhaps you are unaware that the articles referenced in the OP were written based on recently published declassified documents about the incident obtained through the FOIA. Eric Schlosse (Fast Food Nation, Reefer Madness, etc.) just published a book Command and Control which showed the documents and how close we came to there being a giant crate in NC. In the documents, investigators from the Air Force and Sandia National Laboratories confirmed that the only thing stopping a full-on nuclear detonation was a single safety switch. The incident and the investigation led to the Air Force discontinuing carrying the Mk39 bomb on ready alert bomber missions over the US do to "inadequate safety measures".
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