In 1968 a US plane carrying four H-bombs crashed into sea ice in Greenland and exploded, contaminating the area around the site with radiation.
Operation
Chrome Dome was a US airborne alert program initiated in 1961 during the Cold
War. As part of the operation’s, nuclear-armed Boeing B-52 Stratofortress
bombers were flown to designated points on the Soviet Union’s border as a
deterrent to the Soviets. Four bombers remained on alert each day, with the
flights being conducted without the knowledge of civilian authorities in the
States.
On
or about January 21, 1968, one of the B-52 bombers was assigned to fly over the
Thule Air Base, the US Air Force’s northernmost base on the Danish territory of
Greenland. The bomber carried four hydrogen bombs.
It
was an otherwise normal flight until, six hours into the flight, a fire started
in the plane and the crew couldn’t extinguish the flames. A mandatory third
pilot named Major Alfred D'Mario had placed three cloth-covered foam cushions
on top of a heating vent under the instructor navigator's seat in the aft
section of the lower deck. Shortly after take-off, another cushion was placed
under the seat which ignited.
The
captain declared it an emergency and requested emergency landing at Thule
airbase. Minutes later the plane lost electricity and the cockpit was
overwhelmed by dense smoke rendering the instruments useless to read and making
an emergency landing impossible. Six members of the crew managed to, but
co-pilot Leonard Svitenko died in the accident. (Captain Curtis R. was found
six miles away from the base, lost on the ice for 21 hours. Although he
suffered hypothermia, he survived by wrapping himself in the parachute.)
The
bomber had continued flying, over the air base and crashed into dense sea ice
in the nearby North Star Bay. The hydrogen bombs detonated on impact, but a
nuclear explosion was not triggered due to the design of the weapon. However,
the detonation still dispersed a huge nuclear payload that contaminated the
area with radioactivity. Gallon and gallon of Jet fuel burned for six hours
after the crash, melting the ice sheet sinking the bomber into the ocean.
The
entire area was filled with radioactive contamination. Understandably, the
Danes demanded the nuclear material not be left in Greenland after the cleanup
operation was complete, so the contaminated ice and wreckage were packed in
steel tanks and shipped back to the US. Some 700 specialized personnel from
both countries had worked for nine months to clean up the site, usually without
adequate protective clothing or decontamination measures.
Worse
yet, one of the bombs had not been recovered although the US Military insisted
that all four bombs were destroyed. In 2008, a partly declassified documents
appeared to confirm that within weeks of the accident, investigators realized
only three of the weapons could be accounted for.
The
Chrome Dome operation was suspended immediately following this disaster. The
incident caused a major political scandal in Denmark because the country had
designated itself a nuclear-free zone, yet government officials knew that the
US Army was stockpiling nuclear weapons there.
In
the US, the scandal deepened after it was learned that in 1966, Secretary of
Defense Robert McNamara proposed cutting the flights because they had been made
obsolete by new technology. Also, cutting the operation would save the US $950
million dollars. However, the Strategic Air Command (SAC) and the Joint Chiefs
of Staff opposed the plan and McNamara agreed to a compromise of allowing a
smaller force of four bombers would be on alert each day. But the SAC continued
the operation without the knowledge of civilian authorities who SAC commanders
determined did not have the "need to know" about specific operational
points.
