Broken Arrow – April 11, 1950 Since the United States first began developing and transporting nuclear weapons, there have been a number of accidents involving these weapons while in transport. The Department of Defense came up with a codeword for such events that could result in a nuclear detonation or release of radioactive materials, or the loss of a nuclear weapon: a Broken Arrow. Fortunately, due to the systems that have been put in place, there have been no accidental nuclear detonations on United States soil resulting from accidents in transport. That being said, it can still be considered rather unnerving to know that any one of these accidents could have resulted in a nuclear detonation that would have most certainly devastated the immediate and surrounding areas of the accident. One accident in particular, that occurred on April 11, 1950, was seen by a number of people who knew there was a nuclear weapon involved. Imagine being within a few miles of an aircraft accident, knowing there was a nuclear weapon on board, but not knowing if there would be a release of nuclear material in the crash. The Accident On April 11, 1950, at 9:38 PM, a B-29 took off from Kirtland Air Force Base (AFB) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The aircraft was on a mission to deliver a Mark 4 nuclear weapon to the 509th Bomb Wing at Walker AFB in Roswell. The aircraft and its crew of 13 were only in flight for approximately three minutes when the plane crashed into a mountain on Monzano Base, Kirtland AFB. All 13 personnel were killed in the crash. Neither the bomb, nor the high explosive material, exploded from the impact. Some of the explosive material was scattered and burned in the gasoline fire that resulted from the impact. The bomb cas... ... middle of paper ... ...ve material, and detonators. As a result, the bomb casing was destroyed; most of the explosive material burned up, but a case of four spare detonators and the nuclear capsule were recovered undamaged. Since the components were separated, it was impossible for a nuclear detonation to occur. Had these safety measures not been put in place, the situation could very well have been much worse. Conclusion Between 1950 and 1980, the United States has incurred 32 accidents involving nuclear weapons, or Broken Arrows. Fortunately, none of these accidents resulted in a nuclear detonation on U.S. soil. The accident at Monzano Base in Albuquerque, NM on April 11, 1950 was just one of those accidents that could have been avoided. Due to the substantial safety measures in place, this accident, along with others in the United States, did not result in widespread devastation.
When one thinks about warfare, the average mental picture is usually a movie war scene with soldiers, and planes; very rarely do people think about about the average Joe, trimming his hedge. In the short story “Grace Period”, by Will Baker, there is a man trimming his hedge outside with an electric hedge trimmer when a nuclear bomb is dropped; his wife has gone to get the mail. In “an instant [he felt as] everything stretched just slightly, a few millimeters, then contracted again” (Baker, 1989, p. 7). Although the character does not know what is happening, the reader may realize that this description is a high altitude nuclear burst. The article “Nuclear Weapon Effects”, by John Pike, describes what a nuclear bomb’s effects are and what could happen if one was dropped. Based on clues in the story and the information from the article, the reader can determine what is happening to the man and what he can expect will happen to him.
...ary knew about the crash and that they were going to transport the wreckage to another military base. Many eyewitness accounts with similar details eliminate the possibility of merely a single person making up the entire event. The government’s contradictory reports demonstrate that their knowledge of the incident is dynamic and dependent on how they want the people to react. This matter is important because it raises the possibility that if the government is hiding information from the public about a spacecraft accident, there may be other incidents where the government is concealing the truth from the public. Despite the government’s best attempts to cover up the Roswell incident, eyewitness accounts from the common person validate the idea that an unidentified flying object crashed in Roswell, New Mexico and eternally changed the lives of several people.
The IC decided that the first thing that needed to be done was to contain the fire and get it extinguished as soon as possible. Then the IC divided the situation into three primary sections Tower 1, Tower 2 and the Vista Hotel. The bomb had detonated right below the Vista Hotel and thick black smoke was quickly filling the two towers. He then c...
Although nuclear technology can be used for good, it can also be used for destruction. One example of this was the bombing of 2 Japanese cities using the a...
On July 4, 1947, an unidentified flying object crash landed in a small ranch in Roswell, New Mexico. The phenomena quickly made headline news in the United States, and later after, the world. Soon after, The United States Armed Forces quickly issued a press release reporting that a crashed disk had been recovered. Corrupt Government officials covered up the incident by issuing a second report stating that the wreckage, was “most likely” from an experimental surveillance balloon, code-named “Mogul”. Despite this claim, Major Jesse Marcel, who was responsible of transporting and delivering the material found to the Roswell’s Army Air Force, later reported that the material he was forced to present to the press, was not the same material he had
Chernobyl was the greatest nuclear disaster of the 20th century. On April 26th, 1986, one of four nuclear reactors located in the Soviet Union melted down and contaminated a vast area of Eastern Europe. The meltdown, a result of human error, lapsed safety precautions, and lack of a containment vessel, was barely contained by dropping sand and releasing huge amounts of deadly radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere. The resulting contamination killed or injured hundreds of thousands of people and devastated the environment. The affects of this accident are still being felt today and will be felt for generations to come.
On April 26, 1986 around 1:00 AM the reactor number 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Soviet Ukraine performed a test in which a power failure was simulated, as a result a sudden increase of power in the reactor 4 of the nuclear power plant was overheating nuclear reactor core that ultimately led to the explosion of accumulated hydrogen in its interior. Basically, they wanted to experiment with it to see if the power turbines of the reactor could generate enough electricity to cool the pumps in case of failure, until diesel generators would start. The amounts of toxic radioactive materials that was estimated to be about ...
After scientists studied and became familiar with plutonium and uranium 235, they were able to begin the manufacturing process (Gerdes 91). One of the first things that the scientists needed to do was determine what the plutonium and uranium 235 would do when the bomb was dropped (Bondi 494). The bomb used approximately 10,000 to 20,000 tons of trinitrotoluene, TNT (Gerdes 144). The plutonium and other high explosives were put ...
In 1945 after achieving victory over Japan in the Pacific Ocean, the United States conducted the first of many atomic bomb testing on the island of Bikini Atoll from 1946 to 1958. This was to measure the effects of the atomic bombs on naval vessels. The first series of testing was called Operation Crossroads which consisted of dropping two atomic bombs at different times and locations on ninety decommissioned naval vessels. Bikini Atoll was chosen as the ideal place for this testing due to its austere location, weather, and climate. Although Operation Crossroads was deemed necessary by the United States Navy to measure the effects of Nuclear weapons on Navy vessels the tests resulted in the dislocation of the native population, failed to achieve the desired results due to human error, and resulted in long term radiation contamination. In order to prove this, I will discuss the operating environment, the nuclear tests, and the continued contamination of Bikini Atoll.
Due to the flaw of engineering design and of operation mistake, several serious engineering disasters happened in the human history that have brought a lot of unalterably horrible influences. One of them was Chernobyl nuclear accident that took place on 26 April 1986 at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. According to the reports published by government in Ukraine, this nuclear accident had lost hundreds of dollars. Which was one of serious nuclear accidents around the world. After Nuclear Power Plant exploded, a great deal of radioactive material was released into the sky and separate to Russian, Western Europe and parts of the northern Europe. Actually, the explosion of the Nuclear Plant only led to 2 people died. However, the influence of radioactive material had affected millions of people. Given that serious effect, we should know that why could this situation happened?
The accident occurred at a nuclear reactor facility located in Cumbria, England. This nuclear reactor facility had two nuclear reactors that were gas-cooled. The reactors were classified as Breeders, and there purpose was to create a wealth of plutonium that could be used in nuclear weapons. This was done by inundating uranium-238 with neutrons. When one of these uranium-238 atoms absorbed a neutron, it would become uranium-239. Uranium-239 is a very unstable element, and it decays very quickly by beta emission into neptunium-239. Neptunium-239 is also a beta-emitter, and it has a very short half-life of only 2.355 days. When Neptunium decays it becomes the aforementioned plutonium (plutonium-239, to be exact).
The devastation brought about by the atomic bomb has caused fear among all the people that have realized the potential destructive power of its invention. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945 completely obliterated both cities (Lanouette 30). “Little Boy,” the bomb dropped on Hiroshima killed 70,000 people with an additional 66,000 injured (30-39). “Fat Man,” the bomb dropped on Nagasaki also carried its “share of America’s duty” by killing 40,000 people and injuring another 25,000 (30-39). The bombs also killed an estimated 230,000 more people from the after effects of the two explosions (30). The two bombings had opened the world’s eyes to the destructive power that could be unleashed by man.
Nuclear disasters set precedence for one of the most difficult disasters people may deal with. The duration of these disasters have lasting effects for generations and present an astronomical cost to man and the environment. Significant damage will persist from the nuclear disaster which occurred at the Nuclear Power Plant Fukushima Daiichi. With the nuclear revolution only in its infancy, our ability to cope with these incidents is limited to our experiences of the Three Mile Island reactor meltdown and the events in Chernobyl Ukraine. With so few instances of major nuclear disasters taking place, the Fukushima disaster presents many significant and exceptional challenges for Japan and the rest of the world. Several aspects unique to, but not limited to nuclear disasters are damage assessment, debris removal and media interaction with authorities throughout the emergency management process.
In order to stop some contamination, bypass canals were built to isolate the lake from the river, and a storage facility for nuclear waste was built, as well as coolers around them. (CIA Historical Review Program, 1999) A chain reaction occurred when one of the cooling tanks malfunctioned and was not repaired, ultimately causing the explosion. (CIA Historical Review Program, 1999) Without proper care these improvements proved to be not so hel...
Nuclear testing was a global issue during the 1960s. With threats of nuclear war from the communist countries of the Russia, Cuba and China, the United States was anxious to protect itself with a nuclear arsenal of its own. After the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II, the United States did additional nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, Nevada and New Mexico. General knowledge of nuclear radiation was minimal to the public at that time and the United States government could not warn their citizens about the dangerous effects of exposure to nuclear radiation. The diseases and disorders that arose as result of nuclear testing could have been prevented if the government of the United States had advised people about radiation and had implemented a mandatory evacuation around the test areas.