Blog Post #3 Aircraft Nuclear Accidents Jonathan Smithers

This weekend on 60 minutes they were talking about the state of land based nuclear weapons in the United States. The topic of the show was mainly about the land based nuclear arsenal, but they briefly mentioned a couple of nuclear accidents that have occurred. This got me interesting in know what other nuclear accidents have occurred, specifically involving aircraft. One that caught my attention was an incident involving a B-36. The B-36 was simulating an attack on American cities; it was also being used to test if the aircraft could make it to Russia during the arctic winter. The plane was carrying a mark 4 nuclear bomb, the successor to fat man, one of the bombs dropped on Japan. Several hours into the exercise, three of the engines needed to be shutdown because ice caused them to catch on fire. The crew bailed out of the plane and the nuclear bomb was released and destroyed in midair. Another nuclear accident the occurred a little closer to home was when a B-50 flew straight into the ground while carrying a nuclear bomb. This incident occurred in Lebanon, Ohio. The explosive in the bomb went off, but there was no nuclear explosion. There are numerous other nuclear accidents that have occurred that are known. It’s kind of scary to think about the number of accidents that we still don’t know about.