In the afternoon of Sunday January 21, 1968, just over 24 hours after newly inaugurated President Nixon took office, a B-52 plane crash detonated its conventional explosives and ruptured four thermonuclear bombs in its payload ---- one of which was never recovered --- spreading contamination over a wide area similar to a "dirty bomb" near Thule Air Base in northwest Greenland.
"Chrome Dome" was one of several Operations that the US Strategic Air Command had been running since 1958 that kept a constant patrol of nuclear-armed B-52s aloft at all times, running to the border of USSR air space, lingering there, and returning to base.
After a fire in the cockpit could not be controlled the crew bailed out and the plane crashed about 7.5 miles west of the base. The intense heat of 225,000 pounds of jet fuel burned through the ice sheet and caused what was left of the aircraft and munitions to sink to the ocean floor. While safety locks prevented the nuclear payloads from actually detonating, the impact ruptured them and spread contamination. One of the four thermonuclear devices was never found. It's still out there somewhere.
This marked the fifth time a B-52 from the program had crashed while carrying nuclear payloads. Almost exactly two years prior another crash spread plutonium over farmland in southern Spain. Defense Secretary McNamara proposed cutting Operation Chrome Dome as obsolete, but was opposed by the Joint Chiefs. After this 1968 crash the program was finally shut down, except for a brief reprise with "Operation Giant Lance" launched by Nixon in October 1969 as part of his "madman theory" involving a whole squadron of nuclear-armed B-52s flying toward the Soviet Union deliberately designed to be detectable by the USSR.
The three other crashes (one in 1964, two in 1961) all happened in the United States --- in Maryland, Arizona and North Carolina. The first one, Goldsboro, took place exactly one week after President Eisenhower's farewell speech warned of the power of the "military industrial complex". That thread from last year is here --- another January accident... as were all but one of these (known) crashes.
Nuclear arms in the air, at all times, trolling the USSR and crashing here and there. Mostly here.
"Our tax dollars at work"
"Chrome Dome" was one of several Operations that the US Strategic Air Command had been running since 1958 that kept a constant patrol of nuclear-armed B-52s aloft at all times, running to the border of USSR air space, lingering there, and returning to base.
After a fire in the cockpit could not be controlled the crew bailed out and the plane crashed about 7.5 miles west of the base. The intense heat of 225,000 pounds of jet fuel burned through the ice sheet and caused what was left of the aircraft and munitions to sink to the ocean floor. While safety locks prevented the nuclear payloads from actually detonating, the impact ruptured them and spread contamination. One of the four thermonuclear devices was never found. It's still out there somewhere.
This marked the fifth time a B-52 from the program had crashed while carrying nuclear payloads. Almost exactly two years prior another crash spread plutonium over farmland in southern Spain. Defense Secretary McNamara proposed cutting Operation Chrome Dome as obsolete, but was opposed by the Joint Chiefs. After this 1968 crash the program was finally shut down, except for a brief reprise with "Operation Giant Lance" launched by Nixon in October 1969 as part of his "madman theory" involving a whole squadron of nuclear-armed B-52s flying toward the Soviet Union deliberately designed to be detectable by the USSR.
The three other crashes (one in 1964, two in 1961) all happened in the United States --- in Maryland, Arizona and North Carolina. The first one, Goldsboro, took place exactly one week after President Eisenhower's farewell speech warned of the power of the "military industrial complex". That thread from last year is here --- another January accident... as were all but one of these (known) crashes.
Nuclear arms in the air, at all times, trolling the USSR and crashing here and there. Mostly here.
"Our tax dollars at work"
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