Where is the bomb? Where is the lost atomic bomb? The principle of operation of radioactive fallout

In 1961, the Soviet Union tested a nuclear bomb so powerful it would have been too large for military use. And this event had far-reaching consequences of various kinds. That same morning, October 30, 1961, the Soviet Tu-95 bomber took off from Olenya airbase to Kola Peninsula, in the far north of Russia.

This Tu-95 was a specially improved version of an aircraft that had entered service a few years earlier; a large, sprawling, four-engine monster that was supposed to transport the USSR's arsenal of nuclear bombs.

During that decade, huge breakthroughs occurred in Soviet nuclear research. World War II placed the USA and the USSR in the same camp, but post-war period was replaced by coldness in relationships, and then their freezing. And the Soviet Union, which was faced with the fact of rivalry with one of the world's largest superpowers, had only one choice: to join the race, and quickly.

On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear device, known as "Joe-1" in the West - in the remote steppes of Kazakhstan, assembled from the work of spies who had infiltrated the country. American program atomic bomb. During the years of intervention, the testing program quickly took off and began, and during its course some 80 devices were detonated; In 1958 alone, the USSR tested 36 nuclear bombs.

But nothing compared to this test.

The Tu-95 carried a huge bomb under its belly. It was too large to fit inside the aircraft's bomb bay, where such munitions were typically carried. The bomb was 8 meters long, about 2.6 meters in diameter and weighed more than 27 tons. Physically, it was very similar in shape to the "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki fifteen years earlier. In the USSR she was called both “Kuzka’s Mother” and “Tsar Bomba”, and the latter name has been well preserved for her.

The Tsar Bomba was not your average nuclear bomb. It was the result of a feverish attempt by Soviet scientists to create the most powerful nuclear weapons and thereby support Nikita Khrushchev's desire to make the world tremble with power. Soviet technology. It was more than a metal monstrosity, too large to fit into even the largest aircraft. It was a city destroyer, the ultimate weapon.

This Tupolev, painted bright white to reduce the effect of the bomb's flash, reached its destination. New Earth, a sparsely populated archipelago in the Barents Sea, above the frozen northern edges of the USSR. The Tupolev pilot, Major Andrei Durnovtsev, took the plane to the Soviet training ground at Mityushikha at an altitude of about 10 kilometers. A small advanced Tu-16 bomber was flying nearby, ready to film the impending explosion and take air samples from the explosion zone for further analysis.

In order for the two aircraft to have a chance of survival - and there was no more than 50% of them - the Tsar Bomba was equipped with a giant parachute weighing about a ton. The bomb was supposed to slowly descend to a predetermined height - 3940 meters - and then explode. And then, two bombers will already be 50 kilometers away from her. This should have been enough to survive the explosion.

The Tsar Bomba was detonated at 11:32 Moscow time. At the site of the explosion a fire ball almost 10 kilometers wide. The fireball rose higher under the influence of its own shock wave. The flash was visible from a distance of 1000 kilometers from everywhere.

The mushroom cloud at the explosion site grew 64 kilometers in height, and its cap expanded until it spread 100 kilometers from end to end. Surely the sight was indescribable.

For Novaya Zemlya the consequences were catastrophic. In the village of Severny, 55 kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion, all houses were completely destroyed. It was reported that in Soviet areas hundreds of kilometers from the explosion zone there was damage of all kinds - houses collapsed, roofs sank, glass flew out, doors broke. Radio communication did not work for an hour.

“Tupolev” Durnovtsev was lucky; the blast wave from the Tsar Bomba caused the giant bomber to fall 1,000 meters before the pilot could regain control of it.

One Soviet operator who witnessed the detonation reported the following:

“The clouds under the plane and at a distance from it were illuminated by a powerful flash. A sea of ​​light spread under the hatch and even the clouds began to glow and became transparent. At that moment, our plane found itself between two layers of clouds and below, in a crevice, a huge, bright, orange ball blossomed. The ball was powerful and majestic, like... Slowly and quietly he crept upward. Having broken through a thick layer of clouds, it continued to grow. It seemed as if he had sucked in the entire Earth. The spectacle was fantastic, unreal, supernatural.”

The Tsar Bomba released incredible energy - it is now estimated at 57 megatons, or 57 million tons of TNT equivalent. This is 1,500 times more powerful than both the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and 10 times more powerful than all the munitions expended during World War II. The sensors registered the blast wave of the bomb, which circled the Earth not once, not twice, but three times.

Such an explosion cannot be kept secret. The US had a spy plane several tens of kilometers from the explosion. It contained a special optical device, a bhangemeter, useful for calculating the force of distant nuclear explosions. Data from this aircraft - codenamed Speedlight - were used by the Assessment Team foreign weapons to calculate the results of this secret test.

International condemnation was not long in coming, not only from the USA and Great Britain, but also from the Scandinavian neighbors of the USSR, such as Sweden. The only bright spot in this mushroom cloud was that since the fireball did not make contact with the Earth, there was amazingly little radiation.

Everything could have been different. Initially, the Tsar Bomba was intended to be twice as powerful.

One of the architects of this formidable device was the Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov, a man who would later become world famous for his efforts to rid the world of the very weapons he helped create. He was a veteran of the Soviet atomic bomb program from the very beginning and became part of the team that created the first atomic bombs for the USSR.

Sakharov began work on a multilayer fission-fusion-fission device, a bomb that creates additional energy from nuclear processes in its core. This involved wrapping deuterium - a stable isotope of hydrogen - in a layer of unenriched uranium. The uranium was supposed to capture neutrons from the burning deuterium and also start the reaction. Sakharov called it “puff pastry”. This breakthrough allowed the USSR to create the first hydrogen bomb, a device much more powerful than atomic bombs had been a few years earlier.

Khrushchev instructed Sakharov to come up with a bomb that was more powerful than all the others already tested at that time.

The Soviet Union needed to show that it could outpace the United States in the nuclear arms race, according to Philip Coyle. former leader tests nuclear weapons in the United States under President Bill Clinton. He spent 30 years helping create and test atomic weapons. “The US was far ahead because of the work it did in preparing the bombs for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And then they did a lot of atmospheric testing before the Russians even did their first.”

“We were ahead and the Soviets were trying to do something to tell the world that they were a force to be reckoned with. The Tsar Bomba was primarily intended to make the world stop and recognize the Soviet Union as an equal, says Coyle.

The original design—a three-layer bomb with uranium layers separating each stage—would have had a yield of 100 megatons. 3000 times more than the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Soviet Union had already tested large devices in the atmosphere, equivalent to several megatons, but this bomb would have been simply gigantic compared to those. Some scientists began to believe that it was too big.

With such enormous power, there would be no guarantee that a giant bomb would not fall into a swamp in the northern USSR, leaving behind a huge cloud of radioactive fallout.

This is precisely what Sakharov feared, in part, says Frank von Hippel, a physicist and head of the department of social and international relations Princeton University.

"He was really worried about the amount of radioactivity the bomb might create," he says. “And about the genetic consequences for future generations.”

“And that was the beginning of the journey from bomb designer to dissident.”

Before the tests began, layers of uranium, which were supposed to accelerate the bomb to incredible power, were replaced by layers of lead, which reduced the intensity of the nuclear reaction.

The Soviet Union created this powerful weapon, that scientists did not want to test it at full power. And the problems with this destructive device did not stop there.

Tu-95 bombers designed to carry nuclear weapons Soviet Union, were designed to carry much lighter weapons. The Tsar Bomba was so large that it could not be carried on a rocket, and so heavy that the planes carrying it could not carry it to its target and still have enough fuel to return. And in general, if the bomb had been as powerful as it was intended, the planes might not have returned.

Even nuclear weapons can be too many, says Coyle, now a senior fellow at the Arms Control Center in Washington. "It's hard to find a use for it unless you want to destroy very large cities," he says. "It's just too big to use."

Von Hippel agrees. “These things (large free-falling nuclear bombs) were designed so that you could destroy a target from a kilometer away. The direction of movement has changed - towards increasing the accuracy of missiles and the number of warheads."

The Tsar Bomba also led to other consequences. It generated so much concern—five times more than any other test before it—that it led to a taboo on atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in 1963. Von Hippel says Sakharov was particularly concerned about the amount of radioactive carbon-14 that was being released into the atmosphere, an isotope with a particularly long half-life. It was mitigated in part by carbon from fossil fuels in the atmosphere.

Sakharov was worried that the bomb, which was no longer tested, would not be repelled by its own blast wave - like the Tsar Bomba - and would cause global radioactive fallout, spreading toxic dirt throughout the planet.

Sakharov became an outspoken supporter of the 1963 partial test ban and an outspoken critic of nuclear proliferation. And at the end of the 1960s - and missile defense, which he rightly believed would spur a new nuclear arms race. He was increasingly ostracized by the state and subsequently became a dissident, sentenced to Nobel Prize world and was called “the conscience of humanity,” says von Hippel.

It seems that the Tsar Bomba caused precipitation of a completely different kind.

Based on materials from the BBC

So if you're looking for a way how to defuse a bomb in Beholder, then most likely it has already exploded, or you are keeping the game on pause. Let's figure out where to start and how to proceed.

Where to look for the bomb?

First you need to find a bomb in the house. We go down to the basement and find her in washing machine, which is on the left. After you take the bomb, run to the phone - “Dial the number” - “Inform the ministry about the bomb.”

Bomb defusing

The Ministry will promise to send sappers to you. However, you don’t have time and it’s up to you to defuse the bomb. We find out from the ministry by phone about the types of bombs:

• MGB-53- 6 sticks of dynamite, 6 closed circuits, a timer from a wristwatch.
• NKVD-41- flask with nitroglycerin, 1 closed circuit, alarm clock timer.
• GUGB-43- pyroxylin gunpowder, two closed circuits, a timer from an electronic clock.

After this, we return to the laundry room, examine the bomb (this will help you determine the type of bomb), and then defuse it using the instructions received.

Thus, problems with the task Tick Tock, Boom! And defusing a bomb in Beholder it shouldn't happen to you.

As it was announced, the hydrogen bomb caused an extremely negative reaction from the world community. The threat of new sanctions looms over official Pyongyang. In a similar way, the leading countries of the world, primarily those armed with nuclear weapons, strive to prevent their further proliferation.

One of the biggest threats of the current moment is considered to be the acquisition of nuclear weapons by the so-called “rogue states” or terrorist groups.

At the same time, it is taken for granted that the ammunition in service with the powers that have long been members of the “nuclear club” are under strict control and do not pose any threat.

In fact, this is far from the case. Information about blatant cases of negligent handling of nuclear bombs, no, no, and yes, it does appear. For example, in the late summer of 2007, a US B-52 strategic bomber mistakenly loaded with nuclear weapons flew 1,500 miles over America with the weapons on board before it was noticed missing.

The bomber took off from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota and landed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana more than three hours later. Only then did the crew discover that under the wings of the aircraft there were 6 cruise missiles armed with W80-1 warheads with a yield of 5 to 150 kilotons.

The US military was quick to say that the ammunition had not posed a threat all this time and was under control. However, the squadron commander was removed from his post, and the crew was prohibited from working with a combat nuclear arsenal.

But the 2007 incident is minor compared to the cases when the US Air Force simply lost real military nuclear bombs.

Uranium as a gift to Canadians

In 1968, the US Department of Defense first published a list of nuclear weapons accidents, listing 13 serious accidents that occurred between 1950 and 1968. An updated list was released in 1980, it already included 32 cases. Meanwhile, the US Navy, which released classified data under the Freedom of Information Act, admitted to 381 nuclear weapons incidents between 1965 and 1977 alone.

The history of such emergencies began in February 1950, when, during an exercise, a B-36 bomber, playing the role of a USSR Air Force plane that decided to drop a nuclear bomb on San Francisco, crashed in British Columbia. The bomb on board the plane did not have a capsule that triggered the process leading to an atomic explosion.

After the disappearance of the B-36, the leadership of the exercise believed that the plane had fallen into the ocean and stopped the search. But three years later, the US military accidentally stumbled upon the wreckage of the plane and the lost atomic bomb. They tried not to make the scandalous case widely public.

In 1949, the Soviet Union tested its own atomic bomb. The United States reacted to this quite nervously, increasing the number of flights with real atomic charges several times.

But the more often planes take to the skies, the higher the risk of accidents. In 1950 alone, the US Air Force experienced 4 accidents of aircraft carrying atomic weapons. One of the most dangerous incidents occurred over Canada, where the crew of a B-50 bomber, which began to have problems, decided to drop a Mark 4 atomic bomb into the St. Lawrence River, having previously activated the self-destruct system. As a result, self-destruction occurred at an altitude of 750 meters, and 45 kilograms of uranium fell into the river. Local residents were told that the incident was a planned test during a military exercise.

Nuclear resort

In 1956 water Mediterranean Sea became richer by two containers of weapons-grade plutonium - this happened after the crash of a B-47 bomber flying to Morocco. These containers were never found.

In 1957, an American C-124 transport aircraft carrying three nuclear warheads, due to an emergency on board, decided to drop two bombs into Atlantic Ocean. They have not been found to this day.

In February 1958, a Mark 15 hydrogen bomb fell to the bottom of Wassaw Bay near the resort town of Tybee Island on Tybee Island, Georgia. This happened after a collision between a B-47 bomber and an F-86 fighter. It was never possible to find the bomb, and careless American vacationers are still relaxing next to a “neighbor” of enormous destructive power. However, the US military department insists on the version that it was not a real nuclear bomb that went missing in 1958, but only a dummy one.

The American military has a special code “Broken Arrow”, which means that there has been a loss of a nuclear weapon, that is, an emergency of the highest category.

Curiosity is a vice

Less than a month after the events at Tybee Island, the Broken Arrow code was again put into effect - this time the Mark 6 bomb was lost over South Carolina. This time, upon reaching the ground, it exploded, leaving a crater 9 meters deep and 21 meters in diameter. Fortunately, a conventional charge detonated, and there was no nuclear capsule inside.

When they began to find out how the B-47 bomber lost a bomb that was being transported to England, senior officials American army grabbed their hearts. It turned out that one of the plane crew members, who decided to take a closer look at the bomb, accidentally pressed the emergency release lever, releasing the ammunition “into the wild.”

In 1961, a B-52 bomber carrying two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs disintegrated in mid-air. One of the bombs that fell into the swamp was found after lengthy excavations. The second one descended safely by parachute and calmly waited for the search group. But when experts began to study it, they almost turned gray with horror - out of four fuses that prevent a nuclear explosion, three turned off. America was saved from a powerful thermonuclear explosion by a low-voltage switch, which was a quarter fuse.

In 1965, another American hydrogen bomb found shelter on the ocean floor at a depth of 5 kilometers. This happened after an A-4E Skyhawk attack aircraft equipped with a nuclear charge inadvertently fell into the ocean from the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga.

Spanish "Chernobyl"

Incidents that occurred over own territory, the American military tried not to make it public. But on January 17, 1966, an emergency occurred international scale. At an altitude of 9,500 meters off the coast of Spain, while refueling, a US Air Force B-52G bomber with nuclear weapons on board rammed a KC-135 Stratotanker tanker aircraft. The B-52G broke up in midair, killing three of the seven crew members and ejecting the rest. And four hydrogen bombs of the Mark28 type, equipped with braking parachutes, fell down uncontrollably. The tanker plane also exploded, the wreckage of which was scattered over an area of ​​40 square kilometers.

But the American military was more interested in the fate of the bombs. As it turned out, one of them fell into the ocean, almost drowning the boat of a 40-year-old local fisherman from the village of Palomares Francisco Simo Ortza.

It is interesting that when the fisherman contacted the police, they simply shrugged their shoulders - the local law enforcement officers were not notified of the emergency.

Meanwhile, literally the next day, the residents of the village of Palomares felt as if they were at war - their locality and a ten-kilometer zone around him was cordoned off by NATO soldiers and officers conducting a search operation.

It was clear that something extraordinary was happening, but only three days later the US military command acknowledged the loss in the plane crash nuclear bomb, but only one. As stated, it fell into the ocean and does not pose a danger to local residents.

Nothing was reported about the other three. The search team managed to find one of them descending on its parachute into the semi-dried bed of the Almansora River.

The situation with the other two was much worse. Their parachute systems did not work, and they crashed into the ground one and a half kilometers west of the village, as well as on its eastern outskirts. The fuses activating the main charge did not work, otherwise the Spanish coast would have turned into a radioactive desert. But the detonated TNT caused the release of a dense cloud of highly radioactive plutonium into the atmosphere.

According to the official version, 230 hectares of soil, including farmland, were exposed to radioactive contamination. Despite the decontamination work carried out, 2 hectares of the area around the bomb sites are still considered undesirable for visiting today.

The fourth bomb was found and raised from the seabed 80 days later, after they finally learned about what Francisco Simo Orts had seen. The search and recovery of the bomb cost the United States $84 million, which was the record cost of a maritime rescue operation in the 20th century.

The US government paid local residents more than $700 thousand in compensation. The US Air Force has announced it will stop flying bombers carrying nuclear weapons over Spain.

In order to convince citizens that the sea in the area of ​​the incident is safe, US Ambassador to Spain Angier Beadle Duke and Spanish Tourism Minister Manuel Fraga Ilibarn in the presence of journalists, they personally swam in water that many considered contaminated.

Forty years later, in 2006, Spain and the United States signed an agreement to clean up the area near the village of Palomares from the remnants of plutonium-239 that fell into the area as a result of the disaster on January 17, 1966.

Greenlandic "souvenir"

On January 21, 1968, a US Air Force B-52 strategic bomber crashed near the American base at North Star Bay in Greenland. The planes flying out from this base on patrol were ready to strike the USSR and had nuclear weapons on board.

The B-52 that crashed on January 21 was equipped with four nuclear bombs. The plane broke through the ice and sank to the bottom of the ocean. According to information released in 1968, all the bombs were discovered and neutralized. Years later, it became known that only three munitions were brought to the surface. The fourth, after several months of search work, was left at the bottom.

Hundreds of American military and Danish civilian specialists from the airbase were involved in environmental cleanup of the area. 10,500 tons of contaminated snow, ice and other radioactive waste were collected in drums and sent to the Savannah River plant for disposal in the United States. The operation cost the American treasury $10 million.

The disaster in Greenland forced US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara order the cessation of combat patrols with nuclear bombs on board.

To date, the US Defense Department recognizes irretrievable loss in the years cold war 11 nuclear bombs.

As for the Soviet Union, according to official statements of the Russian Ministry of Defense, no such cases were recorded in the USSR Air Force. Information about the crash of a Soviet strategic bomber with two nuclear bombs on board, which allegedly took place in 1976 in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, has never been confirmed by officials.

It is quite possible that in the USSR there really were no emergency situations comparable to the American ones. This is also explained by the smaller number of Soviet strategic aviation, and the ban on combat patrols with nuclear bombs on board, which has always existed in the USSR Air Force.

The Soviet Union is a confident leader in another indicator - the number of nuclear weapons that ended up on the ocean floor after nuclear submarine disasters. According to currently available information, as a result of the disasters of nuclear submarines of the USSR and the USA, about 50 nuclear warheads ended up in the depths of the ocean, more than 40 of which were Soviet.

It is no longer a secret that about 50 nuclear warheads were lost during the Cold War, and not all of them remained lying in uninhabited areas.

In 1980, the US Department of Defense published a report in which there were already 32 cases of loss of nuclear bombs. At the same time, the same documents were issued and navy under the Freedom of Information Act, which listed 381 nuclear weapons incidents in the United States between 1965 and 1977. We have already read about 13 cases related to and one of them, which concerns the tragedy over the Spanish village of Palomares, is simply shocking.

Let's find out more about this case.

On January 21, 1968, a US Air Force B-52 strategic bomber crashed near the American base at North Star Bay. On board accident victim The plane had four such bombs. The plane broke through the ice and ended up on the seabed. Officially, the US authorities stated that all atomic bombs were raised from sea ​​day. However, in reality, only three bombs were discovered and recovered from the Arctic Ocean. But the fourth charge was never found.

So how it was...

The plane crash over the Thule base occurred on January 21, 1968, when, after a fire broke out on board the B-52 strategic bomber, the crew was forced to urgently abandon the plane over the Thule US Air Force base in Greenland and the out-of-control plane crashed 12 km from the base. The bomber was on combat patrol as part of Operation Chrome Dome and carried four B28FI thermonuclear bombs. As a result of the crash of the plane, abandoned by the crew, the thermonuclear ammunition collapsed, causing radiation contamination of the area. Subsequently, reports appeared in the press, based on declassified documents, that during the search operations, fragments of only three of the four bombs on board were discovered, and the fate of the fourth remains unknown.

1. Flight mission

Since 1960, the US Air Force Strategic Command conducted Operation Chrome Dome, which consisted of constant combat patrols in the air of strategic bombers with thermonuclear weapons on board, in readiness to strike targets on the territory of the USSR. Since 1961, as part of the operation, tasks began to be carried out under the code names “Hard Head” for visual observation of radar station at Thule Air Base, which served as a key component of the BMEWS missile attack early warning system. The goal of Hard Head was to obtain a quick assessment of the situation in the event of a communication failure with the station. The aircraft operating as part of this mission also carried thermonuclear bombs.

Set of four thermonuclear bombs B28

2. Disaster

On January 21, 1968, a B-52G bomber belonging to the 380th Bomb Wing of the United States Strategic Aviation took off from Plattsburgh Air Force Base, located in Plattsburgh (New York), for another patrol according to the Hard Head plan. The ship's commander was Captain John Hogue. On board, in addition to the five full-time crew members, were a replacement navigator, Captain Chris Curtis, and a reserve (third) pilot, Major Alfred D'Mario.

Before departure, D'Mario placed three foam rubber cushions covered with fabric on the heating vent, under the navigator-instructor's seat in the aft part of the lower deck, and soon after departure - another one. The flight was uneventful, with the exception of mid-air refueling from a tanker KC-135, which had to be carried out manually due to problems with the autopilot.

About an hour after refueling, the commander ordered the co-pilot, Captain Leonard Svitenko, to take a break for rest, and Major D'Mario to take his place. Since it was cold in the cockpit, D'Mario opened the air intake valve from the engine air tract into the heating system. Due to a technical malfunction, the hot air from the turbine was practically not cooled when entering the heating system, and soon the cabin became very hot, and the foam cushions folded under the seat ignited. There was a smell of burning rubber. The crew began searching for the source of the smell, and the navigator, after inspecting the lower deck twice, discovered a source of fire. Attempts to extinguish the flames using two fire extinguishers were unsuccessful, and at 15:22 EST, when the aircraft was 140 kilometers from Thule Air Force Base, Captain Hogue transmitted a mayday signal and requested permission for an emergency landing. Within five minutes, all fire extinguishers on board were expended, the power supply was cut off, and the cockpit filled with smoke to such an extent that the pilots could not read the instruments. The ship's commander, realizing that it would not be possible to land the car, ordered the crew to leave the plane. Four crew members ejected as soon as D'Mario confirmed that the plane was directly above the base. They were followed by the pilots - Hog himself and D'Mario. Co-pilot Svitenko, left without an ejection seat, tried to leave the car through the lower hatch, but received a fatal head injury.

The out-of-control aircraft flew north for some time, then turned 180° and crashed onto the ice of North Star Bay at 15:39 EST. The impact exploded the conventional fuses in all four bombs, and although there was no nuclear explosion, radioactive components were scattered over a large area. The ignited aviation fuel melted the ice and the wreckage sank to the bottom of the ocean.

Hog and D'Mario landed directly on the airbase within ten minutes of each other and immediately informed the base commander that at least six crew members had managed to eject and that there were hydrogen bombs on board the crashed B-52. Rescuers were able to locate the remaining survivors crew members. The longest search took for Captain Curtis, who left the plane first and landed at a distance of 9.7 km from the base. He was found only 21 hours later and suffered greatly from hypothermia (the air temperature reached -31 °), but managed to survive, wrapped in parachute.

An aerial reconnaissance of the crash site, carried out almost immediately, was able to detect only six engines, a tire and small debris on the ice. The incident was classified as a "Broken Arrow", a code designating a nuclear weapons incident that did not pose a threat of war.

Loading contaminated ice into tanks

3. Crested Ice Project

Explosions and fire destroyed most debris scattered over an area approximately 4.8 km long and 1.6 km wide. Parts of the bomb bay were discovered 3.2 km north of the crash site, indicating that the plane began to disintegrate while still in the air. The ice at the crash site was broken, creating a hole with a diameter of about 50 m. To the south of the crash point, burning jet fuel left a blackened spot 670 by 120 m, this area was most contaminated with spilled JP-4 fuel and radioactive elements, including plutonium, uranium, americium and tritium, the plutonium concentration reached 380 mg/m³.

American and Danish services immediately began work to clean up and decontaminate the area. The project received the official code name "Crested Ice", and (unofficially among the participants) - "Doctor Frizzle". The goal of the project was to complete the work before the spring thaw in order to prevent radioactive contamination of the ocean.

US Air Force General Richard Overton Hunziker was appointed head of the operation. To ensure round-the-clock operation in the immediate vicinity of the crash site, “Camp Hunziker” was created, consisting of residential igloos, a power plant, a communications center and a helicopter port. Two ice roads were built for communication with the airbase. Several prefabricated huts, a trailer with decontamination equipment, and a public restroom were later installed.

To control the decontamination of people and equipment, on January 25, “ zero line"—the boundary of the contamination zone measuring 1.6 by 4.8 km (1 by 2 miles), within which alpha decay was recorded. The operation was carried out in extreme weather conditions, average temperature the air was about −40° Celsius, periodically dropping to −60°, the wind speed reached 40 m/s. Since the accident occurred during the polar night, it was necessary to work under artificial lighting; the first sunrise took place only on February 14.

Using graders, contaminated snow and ice from the accident site were loaded into wooden containers. The containers were stored at a site near the airbase and then loaded into steel tanks, which were shipped to the United States by sea. Wreckage hydrogen bombs The tanks were sent to the Pantex plant in Texas for inspection, and the tanks for disposal were sent to the Savanah River nuclear repository in South Carolina.

The Air Force monitored airborne contamination levels through respirator testing. Alpha decay was detected on 335 of the 9837 respirators collected, but within acceptable standards. The level of plutonium contamination was checked through urine tests, and no traces of plutonium were found in any of the 756 samples taken.

The operation ended on September 13, 1968, when last tank was loaded onto a ship bound for the USA. A total of 2,100 m3 (55,000 gallons) of radioactive liquid and 30 tanks of radioactive liquid were collected. various materials, some of which were also infected. By the end of the project, 700 American and Danish specialists, as well as more than 70 US government agencies, had participated. The cost of the operation is estimated at $9.4 million ($58.8 million in 2010 prices).

Star III submersible

4. Search for bombs

In August 1968, an underwater search for the remains of hydrogen bombs, especially the uranium shells of the second stages, was organized using the Star III underwater vehicle. The real goals of the operation were classified; the instructions prescribed that in discussions with the Danes the operation should be referred to as “exploration of the ocean floor at the crash site.” Underwater work was associated with significant technical difficulties and was interrupted ahead of schedule. As a result of the search, one practically complete uranium shell and fragments, together corresponding to two more, and some minor details were discovered. The fourth shell was not found. An Atomic Energy Commission document dated September 1968 stated that the fourth shell was believed to be in "a pile of massive debris found at the bottom."

Operation Chrome Dome

Operation Chrome Dome was significantly scaled back after the Palomares disaster, and was finally abandoned after the Thule incident as the costs and risks associated with the operation were reassessed as unacceptable. Intercontinental ballistic missiles land-based and sea-based weapons have become the main means for the United States to ensure nuclear parity.

After the Palomares and Thule disasters, in which a conventional explosion led to the dispersion of nuclear materials, researchers concluded that the explosive used in the construction of the bombs was not stable enough and could not withstand the conditions of a plane crash. It was also found that the electrical circuits of the safety devices are not reliable enough, and in the event of a fire there is a risk of a short circuit. These conclusions served as the impetus for the start of a new stage of research and design work to improve the safety of nuclear weapons.

Livermore National Laboratory developed the so-called “Susan Test” to test the stability of explosives. The test involved firing a special projectile at a sample of explosive placed on a hard metal surface. By 1979, Los Alamos National Laboratory had developed a new "low-sensitivity" high explosive for use in nuclear devices. Ray Kidder, an American physicist and nuclear weapons designer, argued that if the bombs had been equipped with new explosives during the Palomares and Tula disasters, the explosions would not have occurred.

40 years have passed...

Bomber pilot John Hogue, almost half a century after the incident, spoke about what happened: “The situation got out of control. A fire started in the cockpit, and after five minutes we practically had no control over the plane. For the first time in my life, I was forced to send an SOS signal.” Another pilot of the crashed B-52, Joe Di-Amario, testified: “We only had a few minutes to make it to military base at Thule [Greenland], we even saw landing lights, but the situation was rapidly deteriorating. The car could not be saved."

For local residents, the incident came as a shock. When the plane crashed, the fuel tanks detonated. A witness to the disaster, who watched the plane fall from the shore, said: “I saw an explosion. At first I didn’t hear anything, but I saw a monstrous explosion.” Another witness to the B-52 crash shared his memories of what he saw: “We were sitting in a bar. It was an ordinary Sunday morning when news came that a plane with nuclear bombs had fallen into the ocean, breaking through the ice. People were shocked.”

Immediately after the plane crash, search teams were equipped. Hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of radioactive snow and ice were removed from the disaster site. They searched for a long time; a submarine even came to the crash site of the bomber. Three nuclear charges were found and successfully neutralized, but the fourth bomb could not be found, although it was officially announced that all the consequences of the plane crash had been eliminated, the bombs had been found and raised from the seabed.

An eyewitness to the incident, a local resident, recalls: “We were young and were happy to help the American military. They collected the remains of the aircraft and equipment, loaded everything into containers and took them to the base. They didn’t really tell us how things really were.”

Everyone who took part in the rescue operation was thanked, and the case was closed, put into the archives under the heading “secret” for many 40 years. Now the secrecy period established by US law has expired, and it has become clear that Greenland has been living on a nuclear bomb for the last 40 years.

In fact, only three bombs were discovered and recovered from the Arctic Ocean. But the fourth charge was never found. This is evidenced by a declassified US government video obtained by the BBC.

According to documents, by the end of January one of the blackened sections of ice in the area of ​​the accident was visible. The ice there re-frozen, and through it the outlines of the weapon's parachute could be seen. By April, it was decided to send the Star III submarine to the incident area to search for lost bomb under registration number 78252. The real purpose of the submarine’s arrival was deliberately hidden from the Danish authorities, the BBC notes.

"The fact that this operation involves searching for an object or missing part of a weapon should be treated as confidential NOFORN (which means not to be revealed to any foreign country),” says one of the documents, dated July.

Meanwhile, the underwater search was unsuccessful. At first this was hampered by various technical problems, and then winter came. It was decided to stop the search operation, the documents say. They also say that the missing part of the weapon contained the following radioactive elements, like uranium and plutonium.

And now, as the BBC notes, local residents are concerned that the bomb has rusted due to exposure to salt water and poses a huge threat to the environment.

sources

So, let's say a low-yield nuclear bomb explodes in your city. How long will you have to hide and where to do it to avoid consequences in the form of radioactive fallout?

Michael Dillon, a scientist at Livermore National Laboratory, spoke about radioactive fallout and survival techniques. After numerous studies, analysis of many factors and possible development events, he developed a plan of action in the event of a disaster.

At the same time, Dillon’s plan is aimed at ordinary citizens who have no way of determining which way the wind will blow and what the magnitude of the explosion was.

Little bombs

Dillon's method of protection against has so far been developed only in theory. The fact is that it is designed for small nuclear bombs from 1 to 10 kilotons.

Dillon argues that nuclear bombs are now associated with the incredible power and destruction that would have occurred during the Cold War. However, such a threat seems less likely than terrorist attacks using small nuclear bombs, several times less than those that fell on Hiroshima, and simply incomparably less than those that could destroy everything if there was a global war between countries.

Dillon's plan is based on the assumption that after a small nuclear bomb the city survived and now its residents need to escape from the radioactive fallout.

The diagram below shows the difference between the radius of a bomb in the situation Dillon examines and the radius of a bomb from a Cold War arsenal. The most dangerous area is indicated in dark blue (psi is the pound/in² standard used to measure the force of an explosion; 1 psi = 720 kg/m²).

People located a kilometer from this zone risk receiving a dose of radiation and burns. The range of radiation hazards from a small nuclear bomb is much smaller than from Cold War thermonuclear weapons.

For example, a 10 kiloton warhead would create a radiation threat 1 kilometer from the epicenter, and radioactive fallout could travel another 10 to 20 miles. So it turns out that a nuclear attack today is not instant death for all living things. Maybe your city will even recover from it.

What to do if a bomb exploded

If you see a bright flash, do not go near the window: you could get hurt while looking back. As with thunder and lightning, the blast wave travels much slower than the explosion.

Now you will have to take care of protection from radioactive fallout, but in the event of a small explosion, you do not need to look for a special isolated shelter. For protection, you can take refuge in an ordinary building, you just need to know which one.

30 minutes after the explosion you should find a suitable shelter. In half an hour, all the initial radiation from the explosion will disappear and the main danger will be radioactive particles the size of a grain of sand that will settle around you.

Dillon explains:

If, during a disaster, you are in a precarious shelter that cannot provide reasonable protection, and you know that there is no such building nearby, within 15 minutes, you will have to wait half an hour and then go look for it. Before you enter the shelter, make sure that there are no radioactive substances the size of sand particles on you.

But what buildings can become a normal shelter? Dillon says the following:

There should be as many obstacles and distance as possible between you and the consequences of the explosion. Buildings with thick concrete walls and roofs, a large number of earth - for example, when you are sitting in a basement surrounded on all sides by earth. You can also go deep into large buildings to be as far away from the open air as possible with the consequences of a disaster.

Think about where you can find such a building in your city and how far from you it is.

Maybe it's the basement of your home, or a building with a lot of interior spaces and walls, with bookshelves and concrete walls, or something else. Just choose buildings that you can reach within half an hour and don't rely on transport: many will flee the city and the roads will be completely clogged.

Let's say you got to your shelter, and now the question arises: how long to sit in it until the threat passes? The films show different paths of events, ranging from a few minutes in a shelter to several generations in a bunker. Dillon claims that they are all very far from the truth.

It is best to stay in the shelter until help arrives.

Given that we are talking about a small bomb with a blast radius of less than a mile, rescuers must react quickly and begin evacuation. In the event that no one comes to help, you need to spend at least a day in the shelter, but it’s still better to wait until the rescuers arrive - they will indicate the necessary evacuation route so that you don’t jump out into places with high level radiation.

The principle of operation of radioactive fallout

It may seem strange to be allowed to leave the shelter after 24 hours, but Dillon explains that the biggest danger after an explosion comes from the early radioactive fallout, which is heavy enough to settle within a few hours after the explosion. Typically, they cover the area in the immediate vicinity of the explosion, depending on the wind direction.

These large particles are the most dangerous due to the high level of radiation, which will ensure the immediate onset of radiation sickness. This differs from the lower doses of radiation that can be caused many years after the event.

Taking refuge in a shelter won't save you from the prospect of cancer in the future, but it will prevent imminent death from radiation sickness.

It is also worth remembering that radioactive contamination is not a magical substance that flies everywhere and penetrates into every place. There will be a limited region with high levels of radiation, and after you leave the shelter, you will need to get out of it as soon as possible.

This is where you need rescuers who will tell you where the border of the danger zone is and how far you need to go. Of course, in addition to the most dangerous large particles, there will be many lighter particles in the air, but they are not capable of causing immediate radiation sickness - what you are trying to avoid after an explosion.

Dillon also noted that radioactive particles decay very quickly, so being outside the shelter 24 hours after the explosion is much safer than immediately after it.

Our pop culture continues to savor the theme of nuclear, which will leave only a few survivors on the planet, taking refuge in underground bunkers, but a nuclear attack may not be so destructive and large-scale.

So you should think about your city and figure out where to run if something happens. Maybe some ugly concrete building that you always thought was an architectural miscarriage will one day save your life.