Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
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- Jul 11, 2008
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Two themonuclear bombs explode in Spain!
On January 17, 1966, a US Air Force B-52 bomber crashed near Palomares near Almería, Andalusia...
... which had previously collided in the air during a refueling maneuver with the KC 135 tanker aircraft....:
The tanker plane also crashes, killing its four crew members.
Five members of the seven-person bomber crew were able to eject from the plane, but one of the parachutes did not open, so that a total of seven of the eleven airmen involved died.
One crew member from the bomber lands on mainland Spain and three others went under at sea a few kilometers offshore, where they were rescued by Spanish fishermen.
The bomber was on a routine NATO deterrent mission and had four hydrogen bombs, each with a yield of 1.45 megatons - each one having a yield 5,000 times that of the Hiroshima bomb! - on board.
In the crash, a nuclear weapon crashes into the Mediterranean Sea. It could recovered not until April 1966...:
The other three bombs fall on mainland Spain!
Although the safety precautions prevented a thermonuclear explosion, the high-explosive conventional explosive charges in two of the bombs detonated on impact, contaminating 220 hectares of farmland with the radioactive components of the warheads.
The last bomb falls into a dry foot delta - the soft mud leaves it unharmed.
In a three-month campaign, around 1,400 tons of radioactively contaminated tomato plantations will be removed and transported by ship USNS Boyce to Aiken, South Carolina on the Savannah River Site for disposal.
Two of the damaged bombs (the one recovered from the sea and the one from the river bed!) can be seen in the next photo…:
On January 29, 1966, the Spanish government will react immediately and ban the USAF from such flights over their territory.
In its final report in 1975, the US Department of Defense stated that the wind that prevailed on the day of the accident had thrown up dust containing plutonium and that "the full extent of the spread would never be known".
It was not until 1985 that residents were given access to their medical records. Some 522 Palomares residents received a total of $600,000 in US government compensation and the city received an additional $200,000 for a seawater desalination plant.
Follow-up measurements in 2004 (!) revealed a continued high level of radioactivity in the soil of some areas in the vicinity of Palomares...:
On January 17, 1966, a US Air Force B-52 bomber crashed near Palomares near Almería, Andalusia...
... which had previously collided in the air during a refueling maneuver with the KC 135 tanker aircraft....:
The tanker plane also crashes, killing its four crew members.
Five members of the seven-person bomber crew were able to eject from the plane, but one of the parachutes did not open, so that a total of seven of the eleven airmen involved died.
One crew member from the bomber lands on mainland Spain and three others went under at sea a few kilometers offshore, where they were rescued by Spanish fishermen.
The bomber was on a routine NATO deterrent mission and had four hydrogen bombs, each with a yield of 1.45 megatons - each one having a yield 5,000 times that of the Hiroshima bomb! - on board.
In the crash, a nuclear weapon crashes into the Mediterranean Sea. It could recovered not until April 1966...:
The other three bombs fall on mainland Spain!
Although the safety precautions prevented a thermonuclear explosion, the high-explosive conventional explosive charges in two of the bombs detonated on impact, contaminating 220 hectares of farmland with the radioactive components of the warheads.
The last bomb falls into a dry foot delta - the soft mud leaves it unharmed.
In a three-month campaign, around 1,400 tons of radioactively contaminated tomato plantations will be removed and transported by ship USNS Boyce to Aiken, South Carolina on the Savannah River Site for disposal.
Two of the damaged bombs (the one recovered from the sea and the one from the river bed!) can be seen in the next photo…:
On January 29, 1966, the Spanish government will react immediately and ban the USAF from such flights over their territory.
In its final report in 1975, the US Department of Defense stated that the wind that prevailed on the day of the accident had thrown up dust containing plutonium and that "the full extent of the spread would never be known".
It was not until 1985 that residents were given access to their medical records. Some 522 Palomares residents received a total of $600,000 in US government compensation and the city received an additional $200,000 for a seawater desalination plant.
Follow-up measurements in 2004 (!) revealed a continued high level of radioactivity in the soil of some areas in the vicinity of Palomares...:
