A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion reactions, producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter.
Damascus is a town in Faulkner and Van Buren counties of central Arkansas, United States. The population of Damascus was 382 at the 2010 census.
A nuclear and radiation accident is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "an event that has led to significant consequences to people, the environment or the facility." Examples include lethal effects to individuals, large radioactivity release to the environment, or a reactor core melt. The prime example of a "major nuclear accident" is one in which a reactor core is damaged and significant amounts of radioactive isotopes are released, such as in the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
Red Alert is a 1958 novel by Peter George about nuclear war. The book provided the underlying narrative structure for Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Kubrick's film differs significantly from the novel in that the film is a black comedy.
Eric Matthew Schlosser is an American journalist and author known for his investigative journalism, such as in his books Fast Food Nation (2001), Reefer Madness (2003), and Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety (2013).
Peter Bryan George was a Welsh author, most famous for the 1958 Cold War thriller novel Red Alert, published initially with the title Two Hours to Doom and written using the pseudonym Peter Bryant. The book was the inspiration for Stanley Kubrick's film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
The United States Armed Forces uses a number of terms to define the magnitude and extent of nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents in order to reduce the time taken to report the type of incident, thus streamlining the radio communications in the wake of the event.
On 14 March 1961 an aircraft accident occurred near Yuba City, California. A United States Air Force B-52F-70-BW Stratofortress bomber, AF Serial No. 57-0166, c/n 464155, carrying two nuclear weapons departed from Mather Air Force Base near Sacramento. According to the official Air Force report, the aircraft experienced an uncontrolled decompression that required it to descend to 10,000 feet (3,000 m) in order to lower the cabin altitude. Increased fuel consumption caused by having to fly at lower altitude, combined with the inability to rendezvous with a tanker in time caused the aircraft to run out of fuel. The aircrew ejected safely, and the now uncrewed aircraft crashed 15 miles (24 km) west of Yuba City, tearing the nuclear weapons from the aircraft on impact. The weapons did not detonate, as their safety devices worked properly. A fireman was killed and several others injured in a road accident while en route to the accident scene.
Operation Chrome Dome was a United States Air Force Cold War-era mission from 1961 to 1968 in which B-52 strategic bomber aircraft armed with thermonuclear weapons remained on continuous airborne alert, flying routes that put them in positions to attack targets in the Soviet Union if they were ordered to do so. The exact routes varied by year, but in general there were routes that went to positions over the Canadian arctic, Alaska, Greenland, and the Mediterranean Sea. Many American Air Force bases in the 1960s allocated at least one bomber crew to "Chrome Dome" duty on a regular basis, and many other bases, including foreign bases, were involved in the refueling operations. Over the years the mission involved overflights of American, Canadian, Danish (Greenland), and Spanish territory, among others. The goal of "Chrome Dome" was to keep a number of nuclear-armed aircraft in a position to help guaranteed nuclear retaliation against the Soviet Union in the event that the latter was somehow able to destroy the majority of US nuclear weapons still on the ground, while also ensuring that Strategic Air Command bomber crews had experience with airborne alert procedures so that, in the event of heightened concern, the number of patrolling bombers could be increased dramatically. Several high-profile nuclear accidents were associated with the "Chrome Dome" program, including the accidental release of nuclear weapons on foreign territory, and it was shut down in the wake of one such accident in 1968.
The 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash was an accident that occurred near Goldsboro, North Carolina, United States, on 24 January 1961. A Boeing B-52 Stratofortress carrying two 3.8-megaton Mark 39 nuclear bombs broke up in mid-air, dropping its nuclear payload in the process. The pilot in command, Walter Scott Tulloch, ordered the crew to eject at 9,000 ft (2,700 m). Five crewmen successfully ejected or bailed out of the aircraft and landed safely; another ejected, but did not survive the landing, and two died in the crash. Information declassified since 2013 has shown that one of the bombs was judged by nuclear weapons engineers at the time to have been only one safety switch away from detonation, and that it was "credible" to imagine conditions under which it could have detonated.
Lloyd Richardson Leavitt Jr. was an American Air Force lieutenant general. As vice commander in chief of the Strategic Air Command, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, he fulfilled the responsibilities of the SAC commander in chief in his absence. He was also the commander's principal adviser in the formulation of SAC policies, plans, and directives.
Nuclear ethics is a cross-disciplinary field of academic and policy-relevant study in which the problems associated with nuclear warfare, nuclear deterrence, nuclear arms control, nuclear disarmament, or nuclear energy are examined through one or more ethical or moral theories or frameworks.
The Damascus Titan missile explosion was a 1980 U.S. nuclear weapons incident involving a Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). The incident occurred on September 18–19, 1980, at Missile Complex 374-7 in rural Arkansas when a U.S. Air Force LGM-25C Titan II ICBM loaded with a 9-megaton W-53 nuclear warhead experienced a liquid fuel explosion inside its silo.
The Basic Encyclopedia is an encyclopedia of the US Air Force that lists places that are targets for bombing. It was begun in 1946 during the Cold War as the Bombing Encyclopedia and included over 80,000 potential targets around the world during the Cold War. It included their B.E. number, a brief description, longitude and latitude, elevation, and category. The title was changed to Basic Encyclopedia in the 1960s or 1970s before its publication ended in 1973. The encyclopedia was computerized and used in the Defense Intelligence Agency's Automated Installation File.
A nuclear close call is an incident that might have led to at least one unintended nuclear detonation or explosion, but did not. These incidents typically involve a perceived imminent threat to a nuclear-armed country which could lead to retaliatory strikes against the perceived aggressor. The damage caused by international nuclear exchange is not necessarily limited to the participating countries, as the hypothesized rapid climate change associated with even small-scale regional nuclear war could threaten food production worldwide—a scenario known as nuclear famine. There have also been a number of accidents involving nuclear weapons, such as crashes of nuclear armed aircraft.
Project Vista was a top secret study conducted by prominent physicists, researchers, military officers, and staff at California Institute of Technology from April 1 to December 1, 1951. The project got its name from the Vista del Arroyo Hotel in Pasadena, California, which was selected as the headquarters for the study. The project was originally meant to analyze possible improvements relating to the relationship between ground and tactical air warfare. Initially, project Vista was not meant to be specific to a certain geographical region, but the focus was quickly set towards Western Europe, as the immediate threat to Europe, United States, and NATO, was the Soviet Union. The report was buried after its release, and was only partially declassified in 1980.
Northeast of San Francisco, California, on 5 August 1950, a United States Air Force Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber carrying a Mark 4 nuclear bomb crashed shortly after takeoff from Fairfield-Suisun Air Force Base with 20 men on board. Twelve men were killed in the crash, including the commander of the 9th Bombardment Wing, Brigadier General Robert F. Travis, and another seven were killed on the ground when the aircraft exploded. The base was later renamed for Travis.
RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, one of several air bases in the United Kingdom which was used by the United States Air Force to store nuclear weapons during the Cold War, was the site of accidents involving nuclear weapons, in 1956 and 1961.
The 1965 Searcy missile silo fire was an uncontrolled fire inside a Titan II missile silo near Searcy, Arkansas on August 9, 1965. The fire broke out while the missile silo was being renovated and improved; the missile was installed and fueled at the time, although the nuclear warhead had been removed. Only two of the 55 workers who were inside the silo at the time survived.
