“Unraveling the Mysteries: How Fire, Ice, and Plutonium Could Redefine Our Understanding of the Universe”
As can be imagined, so many nuclear-armed aircraft in the air 24 hours a day was a massive and complex task – and a dangerous one. Accidents could – and did – happen. The first major incident took place on January 17, 1966, when a Chrome Dome B-52G collided with a KC-135 tanker aircraft during a mid-air refuelling over the Mediterranean Sea. The tanker exploded, killing all four crew aboard, while four of the seven crew aboard the B-52 managed to eject safely. The bomber was carrying a standard load of four B28 thermonuclear gravity bombs, each with a yield of 1.1 megatons of TNT. Thermonuclear or “Hydrogen” bombs comprise two main sections: a conventional nuclear warhead called a primary and one or more secondary stages containing Lithium Deuteride fusion fuel. When the bomb is detonated, radiation from the primary converts the fusion fuel in the secondary stages into hydrogen and compresses it, fusing the hydrogen and releasing massive amounts of energy – and for more on these terrifying weapons, how they work, and how they were developed, please check out our previous video Who Invented the Hydrogen Bomb? One of the B28 bombs from the disintegrating bomber plunged into the Mediterranean, sinking in 780 metres of water, while the three others fell to earth near the small fishing village of Palomares, Spain. The conventional explosives in two of these weapons detonated on impact with the ground, vaporizing the plutonium cores and contaminating nearly 3 square kilometres of Spanish countryside. Thankfully, due to numerous built-in safeguards, this did not trigger a full-scale nuclear detonation. While the remains of these three bombs were quickly located and cleaned up, recovery of the fourth took considerably longer, the weapon finally being raised on April 7, 1966 after a two and a half month search by a fleet of nearly 30 U.S. Navy vessels – and if this sounds somewhat familiar, yes: the search for the lost Palomares bomb is a major plot point in the 2000 film Men of Honour starring Robert de Niro and Cuba Gooding Jr.
The 1966 Palomares crash dramatically revealed the extreme risks involved in Operation Chrome Dome. At the same time, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara pushed to cancel the operation altogether, arguing that the BMEWS radars and newer, more sophisticated ICBMs like the LGM-30 Minuteman made the scheme redundant. SAC and the Joint Chiefs of Staff vehemently opposed this suggestion, but eventually agreed to a scaled-down version of Chrome Dome which involved fewer aircraft but retained the Thule Monitor mission. Barely two years would pass before McNamara finally got his wish, thanks to another deadly accident whose fallout – both literal and political – dwarfed even that of the Palomares Incident.
Around noon on January 21, 1958, a B-52G of the 380th Strategic Bomb Wing with the callsign HOBO 28 took off from Plattsburgh Air Force Base, New York, and headed north to take up its station on the Thule Monitor route. Aboard were seven men: pilot and commander Captain John Haug; copilot Captain Leonard Svitenko; radar navigator Major Frank Hopkins; Electronic Warfare Officer or EWO Captain Richard Marx; gunner Staff Sergeant Calvin Snapp; substitute navigator Captain Curtis Criss; and mandatory third pilot Major Alfred D’Amario. Like the aircraft in the Palomares crash, HOBO 28 was armed with a standard load of four 1.1-megaton B28 thermonuclear gravity bombs.
The flight to Thule and the first air-to-air refuelling were uneventful, and at around 6PM local time HOBO 28 arrived on station and began flying a long, figure-eight shaped orbit along the length of Baffin Bay at an altitude of 10,600 metres. Though the cabin heaters were turned up to full blast, the crew soon grew uncomfortably cold. This prompted Major D’Amario, the spare pilot, to open an engine bleed valve, which vented hot air from the aircraft’s jet engines into the cabin heating ducts. Unfortunately, a malfunction caused this bleed air to barely cool before it entered the ducts, and over the next few minutes the cabin grew uncomfortably hot,. Then, at 6:22, Captain Marx, the Electronic Warfare Officer, reported smelling burned rubber. Searching around the cabin, the crew quickly discovered a small fire burning under the instructor navigator’s seat at the rear of the lower cabin deck. Shortly before takeoff, Major D’Amario had stuffed a number of cloth-covered foam-rubber cushions under this seat; unfortunately, it happened to sit directly over one of the cabin heating vents, and under the full blast of the hot bleed air from the engines, the cushions had ignited.
The cabin quickly filled with thick black smoke, prompting Captain Criss, the navigator, to open the celestial navigation astrodome in an attempt to clear the air. While the crew fought heroically to smother the flames with fire extinguishers, stowage bags, clothing, and other pieces of gear, the blaze soon spread out of control. Captain Haug alerted Thule of his situation and steered the aircraft towards the air base, hoping to make an emergency landing. But at 6:30 the fire burned through a bundle of cables, causing the bomber’s electrical system to fail. At 6:37, upon spotting the lights of Thule directly below, Haug ordered the crew to bail out. Of the seven men aboard, six managed to eject safely, while the seventh, co-pilot Svitenko, was on a rest break on the lower deck and not strapped into an ejection seat. He attempted to bail out through a lower escape hatch but struck his head on the way out, suffering fatal injuries.
