Palomares, Spain
Encyclopedia
The 1966 Palomares B-52 crash or Palomares incident occurred on January 17, 1966, when a B-52G bomber
of the USAF
Strategic Air Command
collided with a KC-135 tanker
during mid-air refuelling
at 31000 feet (9,448.8 m) over the Mediterranean Sea
, off the coast of Spain
. The KC-135 was completely destroyed when its fuel load ignited, killing all four crew members. The B-52G broke apart, killing three of the seven crew members aboard.
Of the four Mk28
type hydrogen bombs the B-52G carried, three were found on land near the small fishing village of Palomares
in the municipality of Cuevas del Almanzora
, Almería
, Spain. The non-nuclear explosives in two of the weapons detonated upon impacting the ground, resulting in the contamination of a 2 square kilometres (494.2 acre) (0.78 square mile) area by radioactive
plutonium
. The fourth, which fell into the Mediterranean Sea
, was recovered intact after a 2½-month-long search.
, North Carolina
, carrying four Type B28RI hydrogen bombs
on a Cold War
airborne alert mission named Operation Chrome Dome
. The flight plan took the aircraft east across the Atlantic Ocean
and Mediterranean Sea
towards the European borders of the Soviet Union
before returning home. The lengthy flight required two mid-air refuellings over Spain
.
At about 10:30 a.m. on January 17, 1966, while flying at 31000 feet (9,448.8 m), the bomber commenced its second aerial refuelling with a KC-135
out of Morón Air Base
in southern Spain
. The B-52 pilot, Major Larry G. Messinger, later recalled,
The planes collided, with the nozzle of the refueling boom striking the top of the B-52 fuselage, breaking a longeron
and snapping off the left wing, which resulted in an explosion that was witnessed by a second B-52 about a mile away. All four men on the KC-135 and three of the seven men on the bomber were killed.
Those killed in the tanker were boom operator Master Sergeant Lloyd Potolicchio, pilot Major Emil J. Chapla, copilot Captain Paul R. Lane and navigator Captain Leo E. Simmons.
On board the bomber, navigator First Lieutenant Steven G. Montanus, electronic warfare officer First Lieutenant George J. Glessner and gunner Technical Sergeant Ronald P. Snyder were killed. Montanus was seated on the lower deck of the main cockpit and was able to eject from the plane, but his parachute never opened. Glessner and Snyder were on the upper deck, near the point where the refuelling boom struck the fuselage, and were not able to eject.
Four of the seven crew members of the bomber managed to parachute to safety: Major Messinger, aircraft commander Captain Charles F. Wendorf, copilot First Lieutenant Michael J. Rooney and radar-navigator Captain Ivens Buchanan. Buchanan received burns from the explosion and was unable to separate himself from his ejection seat, but he was nevertheless able to open his parachute, and he survived the impact with the ground. The other three surviving crew members landed safely several miles out to sea.
The Palomares residents carried Buchanan to a local clinic, while Wendorf and Rooney were picked up at sea by the fishing boat Dorita. The last to be rescued was Messinger, who spent 45 minutes in the water before he was brought aboard the fishing boat Agustin y Rosa by Francisco Simó Orts. All three men who landed in the sea were taken to a hospital in Águilas.
. This settlement is part of Cuevas del Almanzora
municipality, in the Almeria province
of Andalucía
, Spain
. Three of the weapons were located on land within 24 hours of the accident—the conventional explosives in two had exploded on impact, spreading contaminated material while a third was found relatively intact in a riverbed. The fourth weapon could not be found despite an intensive search of the area—the only part that was recovered was the parachute tail plate, leading searchers to postulate that the weapon's parachute had deployed, and that the wind had carried it out to sea.
During early stages of recovery after the accident the 66th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing
, flying RF-101C Voodoos
out of RAF Upper Heyford
near Oxford, England, provided aerial photographs to assist in the recovery operation and to document the crash site.
On January 22, the Air Force contacted the U.S. Navy for assistance. The Navy convened a Technical Advisory Group (TAG), Chaired by RADM L. V. Swanson with Dr. John P. Craven
and CAPT Willard F. Searle, Jr.
to identify resources and skilled personnel that needed to be moved to Spain.
The search for the fourth bomb was carried out by means of a novel mathematical method, Bayesian search theory
, led by Dr. John Craven. This method assigns probabilities
to individual map grid squares, then updates these as the search progresses. Initial probability input is required for the grid squares, and these probabilities made use of the fact that a local fisherman, Francisco Simó Orts, popularly known since then as "Paco el de la bomba" ("Bomb Paco" or "Bomb Frankie"), witnessed the bomb entering the water at a certain location. Orts was contacted by the U.S. Air Force to assist in the search operation.
The United States Navy assembled the following ships in response to Air Force request for assistance:
, a Navajo class fleet tug
arrived January 27, first on-scene flagship through January found UQS-1 SONAR contact where Francisco Simo-Orts saw the bomb fall mother ship for PC3B submersible confirmed Pinnacles SONAR contact served as a support ship for the submersibles Flagship 30 Jan until 15 March flagship March 15 through April transported Aluminaut and Alvin to the search site transported Aluminaut to Miami, Florida after Palomares incident
The recovery operation was led by Supervisor of Salvage, Capt Searle. Hoist, Petrel and Tringa brought 150 qualified divers who searched to 120 feet with compressed air, to 210 feet with mixed gas, and to 350 feet (106.7 m) with hard-hat rigs; but the bomb lay in an uncharted area of the Rio Almanzora canyon on a 70-degree slope at a depth of 2550 feet (777.2 m). After a search that continued for 80 days following the crash, the bomb was located by the DSV Alvin
on March 17, but was dropped and temporarily lost when the Navy attempted to bring it to the surface.
Alvin located the bomb again on 2 April, this time at a depth of 2900 feet (883.9 m).
. On 7 April, an unmanned torpedo recovery vehicle, CURV
, became entangled in the weapon's parachute while attempting to attach a line to it. A decision was made to raise CURV and the weapon together to a depth of 100 feet (30.5 m), where divers attached cables to them. The bomb was brought to the surface by . The was diverted from its Naples destination and stayed on scene until recovery and took the bomb back to America.
Once the bomb was located, Simó Orts appeared at the First District Federal Court in New York City
with his lawyer, Herbert Brownell
, formerly Attorney General
of the United States
under President Dwight D. Eisenhower
, claiming salvage rights
on the recovered hydrogen bomb. According to Craven:
The Air Force settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.
, the accident was reported at the
Command Post of the Sixteenth Air Force
, and it was confirmed at 11:22.
The commander of the U.S. Air Force at Torrejon Air Base
, Spain, Major General Delmar E. Wilson, immediately traveled to the scene of the accident with a
Disaster Control Team. Further Air Force personnel were dispatched later the same day, including nuclear experts from U.S. government laboratories.
The first weapon to be discovered was found nearly intact. However, the conventional explosives from the other two bombs that fell on land detonated without setting off a nuclear explosion (akin to a dirty bomb
explosion). This ignited the pyrophoric
plutonium, producing a cloud that was dispersed by a 30-knot wind. A total of 260 ha
(2 square kilometre (0.77220431718507 sq mi)) was contaminated with radioactive material. This included residential areas, farmland (especially tomato farms) and woods. A campaign to obtain compensation for the local labourers was spearheaded by the Duchess of Medina Sidonia, Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo, led to a 13 month prison sentence for the Red Duchess, as she was subsequently known.
To defuse alarm of contamination, on March 8 the Spanish minister for information and tourism Manuel Fraga
and the US ambassador Angier Biddle Duke
swam on nearby beaches in front of press. First the ambassador and some companions swam at Mojácar
(a resort 15 km (9 mi) away) and then Duke and Fraga swam at the Quitapellejos beach in Palomares.
Despite the cost and number of personnel involved in the cleanup, forty years later there remain traces of the contamination. Snails have been observed with unusual levels of radioactivity. Additional tracts of land have also been appropriated for testing and further cleanup. However, no indication of health issues has been discovered among the local population in Palomares.
was first apprised of the situation in his morning briefing the same day as the accident. He was told that the 16th Nuclear Disaster Team had been sent to investigate, per the standard procedures for this type of accident. News stories related to the crash began to appear the following day, and it achieved front page status in both the New York Times
and Washington Post
on January 20. Reporters sent to the accident scene covered angry demonstrations by the local residents. On February 4, an underground Communist
organization successfully initiated a protest by 600 people in front of the U.S. Embassy in Spain.
Four days after the accident, the Spanish government stated that "the Palomares incident was evidence of the dangers created by NATO's use of the Gibraltar airstrip
", announcing that NATO aircraft would no longer be permitted to fly over Spanish territory
either to or from Gibraltar. On January 25, as a diplomatic concession, the U.S. announced that it would no longer fly over Spain with nuclear weapons, and on the 29th the Spanish government formally banned U.S. flights over its territory that carried such weapons. This caused other nations hosting U.S. forces to review their policies, with the Philippine Foreign Secretary Narciso Ramos calling for a new treaty to restrict the operation of U.S. military aircraft in Filipino airspace.
Palomares and another accident involving nuclear bombers two years later near Thule Air Base
, in Greenland
, made Operation Chrome Dome
politically untenable, leading the U.S. Department of Defense to announce that it would be "re-examining the military need" for continuing the program. Forty years later in the town of Palomares, most people prefer to forget the incident, and it is now noted only by a street named "January 17, 1966".
/m2 was placed in 250 litre drums and shipped to the Savannah River Plant
in South Carolina, USA for burial. A total of 2.2 hectares (5.4 acre) was decontaminated by this technique, producing 6,000 barrels. 17 hectares (42 acre) of land with lower levels of contamination was mixed to a depth of 30 centimetres (11.8 in) by harrowing and plowing. On rocky slopes with contamination above 120 kBq/m2, the soil was removed with hand tools and shipped to the U.S. in barrels.
In 2004, a study revealed that there was still some significant contamination present in certain areas, and the Spanish government subsequently expropriated some plots of land which would otherwise have been slated for agriculture use or housing construction. In early October 2006, the Spanish and United States governments agreed to decontaminate the remaining areas and share the workload and costs, which are hitherto unknown as it first needs to be determined to what extent leaching
of the plutonium has occurred in the 40 years since the incident.
On October 11, 2006, Reuters
reported that higher than normal levels of radiation were detected in snails and other wildlife in the region, indicating there may still be dangerous amounts of radioactive material underground. The discovery occurred during an investigation being carried out by Spain's energy research agency CIEMAT and the U.S. Department of Energy
. The U.S. and Spain agreed to share the cost of the initial investigation.
In April 2008, CIEMAT announced they had found two trenches, totalling 2000 cubic metre, where the U.S. Army stored contaminated earth during the 1966 operations. The American government agreed in 2004 to pay for the decontamination of the grounds, and the cost of the removal and transportation of the contaminated earth has been estimated at $2 million. The trenches were found near the cemetery, where one of the nuclear devices was retrieved in 1966, and they were probably dug at the last moment by American troops before leaving Palomares. CIEMAT expects to find remains of plutonium and americium
once an exhaustive analysis of the earth is carried out.
In a conversation in December 2009, the Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos
told the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
that he feared Spanish public opinion might turn against the US once the results of the study on nuclear contamination were to be revealed.
In August, 2010, a Spanish government source revealed that the U.S. has stopped the annual payments it has made to Spain, as the bilateral agreement in force since the accident "expired" the previous year.
.
While serving on the salvage ship USS Hoist
(ARS-40) during recovery operations, Navy diver Carl Brashear
had his leg crushed in a deck accident and lost the lower part of his left leg. His story was the inspiration for the 2000 Cuba Gooding, Jr.
, film Men of Honor
.
In March 2009, TIME magazine
identified the Palomares accident as one of the world's "worst nuclear disasters".
B-52 Stratofortress
The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is a long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber operated by the United States Air Force since the 1950s. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, who have continued to provide maintainence and upgrades to the aircraft in service...
of the USAF
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
Strategic Air Command
Strategic Air Command
The Strategic Air Command was both a Major Command of the United States Air Force and a "specified command" of the United States Department of Defense. SAC was the operational establishment in charge of America's land-based strategic bomber aircraft and land-based intercontinental ballistic...
collided with a KC-135 tanker
KC-135 Stratotanker
The Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker is an aerial refueling military aircraft. It and the Boeing 707 airliner were developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype. The KC-135 was the US Air Force's first jet-powered refueling tanker and replaced the KC-97 Stratotanker...
during mid-air refuelling
Aerial refueling
Aerial refueling, also called air refueling, in-flight refueling , air-to-air refueling or tanking, is the process of transferring fuel from one aircraft to another during flight....
at 31000 feet (9,448.8 m) over the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
, off the coast of Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. The KC-135 was completely destroyed when its fuel load ignited, killing all four crew members. The B-52G broke apart, killing three of the seven crew members aboard.
Of the four Mk28
B28 nuclear bomb
The B28, originally Mark 28, was a thermonuclear bomb carried by U.S. tactical fighter bombers and bomber aircraft. From 1962 to 1972 under the NATO nuclear weapons sharing program, American B28s also equipped six Europe-based Canadian CF-104 squadrons known as the RCAF Nuclear Strike Force...
type hydrogen bombs the B-52G carried, three were found on land near the small fishing village of Palomares
Palomares, Almería
Palomares is an agricultural, fishing and tourist village on the Mediterranean Sea in the Almería province of Andalusia, Spain. It is about 20 meters above sea level...
in the municipality of Cuevas del Almanzora
Cuevas del Almanzora
-External links:* - Sistema de Información Multiterritorial de Andalucía - Diputación Provincial de Almería...
, Almería
Almería
Almería is a city in Andalusia, Spain, on the Mediterranean Sea. It is the capital of the province of the same name.-Toponym:Tradition says that the name Almería stems from the Arabic المرية Al-Mariyya: "The Mirror", comparing it to "The Mirror of the Sea"...
, Spain. The non-nuclear explosives in two of the weapons detonated upon impacting the ground, resulting in the contamination of a 2 square kilometres (494.2 acre) (0.78 square mile) area by radioactive
Radioactive decay
Radioactive decay is the process by which an atomic nucleus of an unstable atom loses energy by emitting ionizing particles . The emission is spontaneous, in that the atom decays without any physical interaction with another particle from outside the atom...
plutonium
Plutonium
Plutonium is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with the chemical symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, forming a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation...
. The fourth, which fell into the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
, was recovered intact after a 2½-month-long search.
Accident
The B-52G began its mission from Seymour Johnson Air Force BaseSeymour Johnson Air Force Base
Seymour Johnson Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located to the southeast of Goldsboro, North Carolina. The base is named for Navy test pilot Seymour Johnson, a native of Goldsboro...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, carrying four Type B28RI hydrogen bombs
B28 nuclear bomb
The B28, originally Mark 28, was a thermonuclear bomb carried by U.S. tactical fighter bombers and bomber aircraft. From 1962 to 1972 under the NATO nuclear weapons sharing program, American B28s also equipped six Europe-based Canadian CF-104 squadrons known as the RCAF Nuclear Strike Force...
on a Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
airborne alert mission named Operation Chrome Dome
Operation Chrome Dome
Operation Chrome Dome was one of several United States Air Force Cold-War era airborne global alert duties or programs in which B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber aircraft armed with thermonuclear weapons were assigned targets in the Soviet Union on schedules guaranteeing that a substantial...
. The flight plan took the aircraft east across the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
and Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
towards the European borders of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
before returning home. The lengthy flight required two mid-air refuellings over Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
.
At about 10:30 a.m. on January 17, 1966, while flying at 31000 feet (9,448.8 m), the bomber commenced its second aerial refuelling with a KC-135
KC-135 Stratotanker
The Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker is an aerial refueling military aircraft. It and the Boeing 707 airliner were developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype. The KC-135 was the US Air Force's first jet-powered refueling tanker and replaced the KC-97 Stratotanker...
out of Morón Air Base
Morón Air Base
Morón Air Base is located at in southern Spain, approximately southeast of the city of Seville and northeast of Naval Station Rota. The base gets its name from the nearby town of Morón de la Frontera - although its is actually located in the municipality of Arahal.Morón's massive flight line,...
in southern Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. The B-52 pilot, Major Larry G. Messinger, later recalled,
The planes collided, with the nozzle of the refueling boom striking the top of the B-52 fuselage, breaking a longeron
Longeron
In aircraft construction, a longeron or stringer or stiffener is a thin strip of wood, metal or carbon fiber, to which the skin of the aircraft is fastened. In the fuselage, longerons are attached to formers and run the longitudinal direction of the aircraft...
and snapping off the left wing, which resulted in an explosion that was witnessed by a second B-52 about a mile away. All four men on the KC-135 and three of the seven men on the bomber were killed.
Those killed in the tanker were boom operator Master Sergeant Lloyd Potolicchio, pilot Major Emil J. Chapla, copilot Captain Paul R. Lane and navigator Captain Leo E. Simmons.
On board the bomber, navigator First Lieutenant Steven G. Montanus, electronic warfare officer First Lieutenant George J. Glessner and gunner Technical Sergeant Ronald P. Snyder were killed. Montanus was seated on the lower deck of the main cockpit and was able to eject from the plane, but his parachute never opened. Glessner and Snyder were on the upper deck, near the point where the refuelling boom struck the fuselage, and were not able to eject.
Four of the seven crew members of the bomber managed to parachute to safety: Major Messinger, aircraft commander Captain Charles F. Wendorf, copilot First Lieutenant Michael J. Rooney and radar-navigator Captain Ivens Buchanan. Buchanan received burns from the explosion and was unable to separate himself from his ejection seat, but he was nevertheless able to open his parachute, and he survived the impact with the ground. The other three surviving crew members landed safely several miles out to sea.
The Palomares residents carried Buchanan to a local clinic, while Wendorf and Rooney were picked up at sea by the fishing boat Dorita. The last to be rescued was Messinger, who spent 45 minutes in the water before he was brought aboard the fishing boat Agustin y Rosa by Francisco Simó Orts. All three men who landed in the sea were taken to a hospital in Águilas.
Weapons recovery
The aircraft and hydrogen bombs fell to earth near the fishing village of PalomaresPalomares, Almería
Palomares is an agricultural, fishing and tourist village on the Mediterranean Sea in the Almería province of Andalusia, Spain. It is about 20 meters above sea level...
. This settlement is part of Cuevas del Almanzora
Cuevas del Almanzora
-External links:* - Sistema de Información Multiterritorial de Andalucía - Diputación Provincial de Almería...
municipality, in the Almeria province
Almería (province)
-History:The rich customs and Fiestas of the denizens retain links deep into the past, unto the Moors, the Romans, the Greeks, and the Phoenicians.During the taifa era, it was ruled by the Moor Banu al-Amiri from 1012 to 1038, briefly annexed by Valencia , then given by Zaragoza to the Banu Sumadih...
of Andalucía
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. Three of the weapons were located on land within 24 hours of the accident—the conventional explosives in two had exploded on impact, spreading contaminated material while a third was found relatively intact in a riverbed. The fourth weapon could not be found despite an intensive search of the area—the only part that was recovered was the parachute tail plate, leading searchers to postulate that the weapon's parachute had deployed, and that the wind had carried it out to sea.
During early stages of recovery after the accident the 66th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing
66th Air Base Wing
The 66th Air Base Wing is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the Air Force Materiel Command Electronic Systems Center, stationed at Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts...
, flying RF-101C Voodoos
F-101 Voodoo
The McDonnell F-101 Voodoo was a supersonic military jet fighter which served the United States Air Force and the Royal Canadian Air Force...
out of RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Upper Heyford was a Royal Air Force station located north-west of Bicester near the village of Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire, England. The base was brought into use for flying in July 1918 by the Royal Flying Corps. During World War II it was used by many units of the RAF, mainly as a training...
near Oxford, England, provided aerial photographs to assist in the recovery operation and to document the crash site.
On January 22, the Air Force contacted the U.S. Navy for assistance. The Navy convened a Technical Advisory Group (TAG), Chaired by RADM L. V. Swanson with Dr. John P. Craven
John Piña Craven
John Piña Craven is known for his involvement with Bayesian search theory and the recovery of lost objects at sea....
and CAPT Willard F. Searle, Jr.
Willard Franklyn Searle
Capt. Willard Franklyn "Bill" Searle Jr. USN was an American ocean engineer who was principally responsible for developing equipment and many of the current techniques utilized in United States Navy diving and salvage operations.-Background:Searle was born 17 January 1924 in Columbus, Ohio...
to identify resources and skilled personnel that needed to be moved to Spain.
The search for the fourth bomb was carried out by means of a novel mathematical method, Bayesian search theory
Bayesian search theory
Bayesian search theory is the application of Bayesian statistics to the search for lost objects. It has been used several times to find lost sea vessels, for example the USS Scorpion.-Procedure:The usual procedure is as follows:...
, led by Dr. John Craven. This method assigns probabilities
Probability
Probability is ordinarily used to describe an attitude of mind towards some proposition of whose truth we arenot certain. The proposition of interest is usually of the form "Will a specific event occur?" The attitude of mind is of the form "How certain are we that the event will occur?" The...
to individual map grid squares, then updates these as the search progresses. Initial probability input is required for the grid squares, and these probabilities made use of the fact that a local fisherman, Francisco Simó Orts, popularly known since then as "Paco el de la bomba" ("Bomb Paco" or "Bomb Frankie"), witnessed the bomb entering the water at a certain location. Orts was contacted by the U.S. Air Force to assist in the search operation.
The United States Navy assembled the following ships in response to Air Force request for assistance:
Navajo class fleet tug
The Navajo class was the initial class of three fleet tugs built for the United States Navy prior to the start of World War II. They represented a radical departure from previous ocean-going tug designs, and were far more capable of extended open ocean travel than their predecessors. This was due...
arrived January 27, first on-scene flagship through January found UQS-1 SONAR contact where Francisco Simo-Orts saw the bomb fall mother ship for PC3B submersible confirmed Pinnacles SONAR contact served as a support ship for the submersibles Flagship 30 Jan until 15 March flagship March 15 through April transported Aluminaut and Alvin to the search site transported Aluminaut to Miami, Florida after Palomares incident
- USNS Mizar (AGOR-11)
- USNS Dutton (T-AGS-22)USNS Dutton (T-AGS-22)USNS Dutton was an oceanographic survey ship for the United States Navy from the late 1950s through the 1980s. She was launched as SS Tuskegee Victory in 1945, Maritime Commission hull number MCV 682, a type VC2-S-AP3 Victory ship. In her U.S. Navy service, she was named after Captain Benjamin...
- DSV AlvinDSV AlvinAlvin is a manned deep-ocean research submersible owned by the United States Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The vehicle was built by General Mills' Electronics Group in the same factory used to manufacture breakfast cereal-producing...
- AluminautAluminautAluminaut was built in 1964 and was the world's first aluminum submarine. The 80-ton, 51 foot manned deep-ocean research submersible was built by Reynolds Metals Company, which was seeking to advertise the utility of aluminum...
- PC-3B (Ocean Systems, Inc. submersible capable of searching to 600 feet)
- Deep Jeep (a Navy submersible capable of diving to 2000 feet)
- CURVCURV-IIICURV-III was the fourth generation of the United States Navy Cable-controlled Undersea Recovery Vehicle . CURV was a prototype for remotely operated underwater vehicles and a pioneer for teleoperation. It became famous in 1966 when CURV-I was used to recover a hydrogen bomb from the floor of the...
http://www.spawar.navy.mil/robots/undersea/curv/curv.html (Cable-Controlled Underwater Recovery Vehicle) removed aircraft wreck debris from the search site removed aircraft wreck debris from the search site - USNS Lt. George W. G. Boyce (T-AK-251)USNS Lt. George W. G. Boyce (T-AK-251)USNS Lt. George W. G. Boyce was a Boulder Victory-class cargo ship built for the U.S. Maritime Commission during the final months of World War II....
removed radioactive contaminated soil from Spain.
The recovery operation was led by Supervisor of Salvage, Capt Searle. Hoist, Petrel and Tringa brought 150 qualified divers who searched to 120 feet with compressed air, to 210 feet with mixed gas, and to 350 feet (106.7 m) with hard-hat rigs; but the bomb lay in an uncharted area of the Rio Almanzora canyon on a 70-degree slope at a depth of 2550 feet (777.2 m). After a search that continued for 80 days following the crash, the bomb was located by the DSV Alvin
DSV Alvin
Alvin is a manned deep-ocean research submersible owned by the United States Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The vehicle was built by General Mills' Electronics Group in the same factory used to manufacture breakfast cereal-producing...
on March 17, but was dropped and temporarily lost when the Navy attempted to bring it to the surface.
. On 7 April, an unmanned torpedo recovery vehicle, CURV
CURV-III
CURV-III was the fourth generation of the United States Navy Cable-controlled Undersea Recovery Vehicle . CURV was a prototype for remotely operated underwater vehicles and a pioneer for teleoperation. It became famous in 1966 when CURV-I was used to recover a hydrogen bomb from the floor of the...
, became entangled in the weapon's parachute while attempting to attach a line to it. A decision was made to raise CURV and the weapon together to a depth of 100 feet (30.5 m), where divers attached cables to them. The bomb was brought to the surface by . The was diverted from its Naples destination and stayed on scene until recovery and took the bomb back to America.
Once the bomb was located, Simó Orts appeared at the First District Federal Court in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
with his lawyer, Herbert Brownell
Herbert Brownell, Jr.
Herbert Brownell, Jr. was the Attorney General of the United States in President Eisenhower's cabinet from 1953 to 1957.-Early life:...
, formerly Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
under President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
, claiming salvage rights
Marine salvage
Marine salvage is the process of rescuing a ship, its cargo, or other property from peril. Salvage encompasses rescue towing, refloating a sunken or grounded vessel, or patching or repairing a ship...
on the recovered hydrogen bomb. According to Craven:
The Air Force settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.
Contamination
At 10:40 a.m. UTCCoordinated Universal Time
Coordinated Universal Time is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is one of several closely related successors to Greenwich Mean Time. Computer servers, online services and other entities that rely on having a universally accepted time use UTC for that purpose...
, the accident was reported at the
Command Post of the Sixteenth Air Force
Sixteenth Air Force
The 16th Air Expeditionary Task Force is a provisional United States Air Force unit assigned to the United States Air Forces in Europe...
, and it was confirmed at 11:22.
The commander of the U.S. Air Force at Torrejon Air Base
Torrejon Air Base
Madrid-Torrejón Airport is a commercial airport in Spain. It is a joint-use facility between the Spanish Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Public Works. The civil part is dedicated primarily to executive and private aviation. The airport is located northeast of Madrid, west of Alcalá de...
, Spain, Major General Delmar E. Wilson, immediately traveled to the scene of the accident with a
Disaster Control Team. Further Air Force personnel were dispatched later the same day, including nuclear experts from U.S. government laboratories.
The first weapon to be discovered was found nearly intact. However, the conventional explosives from the other two bombs that fell on land detonated without setting off a nuclear explosion (akin to a dirty bomb
Dirty bomb
A dirty bomb is a speculative radiological weapon that combines radioactive material with conventional explosives. The purpose of the weapon is to contaminate the area around the explosion with radioactive material, hence the attribute "dirty"....
explosion). This ignited the pyrophoric
Pyrophoricity
A pyrophoric substance is a substance that will ignite spontaneously in air. Examples are iron sulfide and many reactive metals including uranium, when powdered or sliced thin. Pyrophoric materials are often water-reactive as well and will ignite when they contact water or humid air...
plutonium, producing a cloud that was dispersed by a 30-knot wind. A total of 260 ha
Hectare
The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...
(2 square kilometre (0.77220431718507 sq mi)) was contaminated with radioactive material. This included residential areas, farmland (especially tomato farms) and woods. A campaign to obtain compensation for the local labourers was spearheaded by the Duchess of Medina Sidonia, Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo, led to a 13 month prison sentence for the Red Duchess, as she was subsequently known.
To defuse alarm of contamination, on March 8 the Spanish minister for information and tourism Manuel Fraga
Manuel Fraga Iribarne
Manuel Fraga Iribarne is a Spanish People's Party politician. Fraga's career as one of the key political figures in Spain straddles both General Francisco Franco's dictatorial regime and the subsequent transition to democracy. He served as the President of the Xunta of Galicia from 1990 to 2005...
and the US ambassador Angier Biddle Duke
Angier Biddle Duke
Angier Biddle Duke had a career which included being a diplomat in the United States foreign service.-Biography:Angier Biddle Duke was born November 30, 1915 in New York City....
swam on nearby beaches in front of press. First the ambassador and some companions swam at Mojácar
Mojácar
Mojácar is a municipality situated in the south east of the Province of Almería in southern Spain, bordering the Mediterranean Sea. It is 90 km from the capital of the province, Almería. It is an elevated mountain village displaying the traditional white color from its earlier days...
(a resort 15 km (9 mi) away) and then Duke and Fraga swam at the Quitapellejos beach in Palomares.
Despite the cost and number of personnel involved in the cleanup, forty years later there remain traces of the contamination. Snails have been observed with unusual levels of radioactivity. Additional tracts of land have also been appropriated for testing and further cleanup. However, no indication of health issues has been discovered among the local population in Palomares.
Political consequences
President Lyndon B. JohnsonLyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
was first apprised of the situation in his morning briefing the same day as the accident. He was told that the 16th Nuclear Disaster Team had been sent to investigate, per the standard procedures for this type of accident. News stories related to the crash began to appear the following day, and it achieved front page status in both the New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
on January 20. Reporters sent to the accident scene covered angry demonstrations by the local residents. On February 4, an underground Communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
organization successfully initiated a protest by 600 people in front of the U.S. Embassy in Spain.
Four days after the accident, the Spanish government stated that "the Palomares incident was evidence of the dangers created by NATO's use of the Gibraltar airstrip
RAF Gibraltar
Royal Air Force Station Gibraltar, better known as RAF Gibraltar and formally as North Front, is a Royal Air Force station on Gibraltar. No military aircraft are currently stationed there, but there are regular visits...
", announcing that NATO aircraft would no longer be permitted to fly over Spanish territory
either to or from Gibraltar. On January 25, as a diplomatic concession, the U.S. announced that it would no longer fly over Spain with nuclear weapons, and on the 29th the Spanish government formally banned U.S. flights over its territory that carried such weapons. This caused other nations hosting U.S. forces to review their policies, with the Philippine Foreign Secretary Narciso Ramos calling for a new treaty to restrict the operation of U.S. military aircraft in Filipino airspace.
Palomares and another accident involving nuclear bombers two years later near Thule Air Base
Thule Air Base
Thule Air Base or Thule Air Base/Pituffik Airport , is the United States Air Force's northernmost base, located north of the Arctic Circle and from the North Pole on the northwest side of the island of Greenland. It is approximately east of the North Magnetic Pole.-Overview:Thule Air Base is the...
, in Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
, made Operation Chrome Dome
Operation Chrome Dome
Operation Chrome Dome was one of several United States Air Force Cold-War era airborne global alert duties or programs in which B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber aircraft armed with thermonuclear weapons were assigned targets in the Soviet Union on schedules guaranteeing that a substantial...
politically untenable, leading the U.S. Department of Defense to announce that it would be "re-examining the military need" for continuing the program. Forty years later in the town of Palomares, most people prefer to forget the incident, and it is now noted only by a street named "January 17, 1966".
Cleanup
Soil with radiation contamination levels above 1.2 MBqBecquerel
The becquerel is the SI-derived unit of radioactivity. One Bq is defined as the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second. The Bq unit is therefore equivalent to an inverse second, s−1...
/m2 was placed in 250 litre drums and shipped to the Savannah River Plant
Savannah River Site
The Savannah River Site is a nuclear reservation in the United States in the state of South Carolina, located on land in Aiken, Allendale and Barnwell Counties adjacent to the Savannah River, southeast of Augusta, Georgia. The site was built during the 1950s to refine nuclear materials for...
in South Carolina, USA for burial. A total of 2.2 hectares (5.4 acre) was decontaminated by this technique, producing 6,000 barrels. 17 hectares (42 acre) of land with lower levels of contamination was mixed to a depth of 30 centimetres (11.8 in) by harrowing and plowing. On rocky slopes with contamination above 120 kBq/m2, the soil was removed with hand tools and shipped to the U.S. in barrels.
In 2004, a study revealed that there was still some significant contamination present in certain areas, and the Spanish government subsequently expropriated some plots of land which would otherwise have been slated for agriculture use or housing construction. In early October 2006, the Spanish and United States governments agreed to decontaminate the remaining areas and share the workload and costs, which are hitherto unknown as it first needs to be determined to what extent leaching
Leaching (chemical science)
Leaching is the process of extracting minerals from a solid by dissolving them in a liquid, either in nature or through an industrial process. In the chemical processing industry, leaching has a variety of commercial applications, including separation of metal from ore using acid, and sugar from...
of the plutonium has occurred in the 40 years since the incident.
On October 11, 2006, Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
reported that higher than normal levels of radiation were detected in snails and other wildlife in the region, indicating there may still be dangerous amounts of radioactive material underground. The discovery occurred during an investigation being carried out by Spain's energy research agency CIEMAT and the U.S. Department of Energy
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
. The U.S. and Spain agreed to share the cost of the initial investigation.
In April 2008, CIEMAT announced they had found two trenches, totalling 2000 cubic metre, where the U.S. Army stored contaminated earth during the 1966 operations. The American government agreed in 2004 to pay for the decontamination of the grounds, and the cost of the removal and transportation of the contaminated earth has been estimated at $2 million. The trenches were found near the cemetery, where one of the nuclear devices was retrieved in 1966, and they were probably dug at the last moment by American troops before leaving Palomares. CIEMAT expects to find remains of plutonium and americium
Americium
Americium is a synthetic element that has the symbol Am and atomic number 95. This transuranic element of the actinide series is located in the periodic table below the lanthanide element europium, and thus by analogy was named after another continent, America.Americium was first produced in 1944...
once an exhaustive analysis of the earth is carried out.
In a conversation in December 2009, the Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos
Miguel Ángel Moratinos
Miguel Ángel Moratinos Cuyaubé is a Spanish diplomat and politician, a member of the Socialist Workers' Party and member of Congress where he represents Córdoba....
told the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the...
that he feared Spanish public opinion might turn against the US once the results of the study on nuclear contamination were to be revealed.
In August, 2010, a Spanish government source revealed that the U.S. has stopped the annual payments it has made to Spain, as the bilateral agreement in force since the accident "expired" the previous year.
Aftermath
The empty casings of two of the bombs involved in this incident are now on display in the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in Albuquerque, New MexicoAlbuquerque, New Mexico
Albuquerque is the largest city in the state of New Mexico, United States. It is the county seat of Bernalillo County and is situated in the central part of the state, straddling the Rio Grande. The city population was 545,852 as of the 2010 Census and ranks as the 32nd-largest city in the U.S. As...
.
While serving on the salvage ship USS Hoist
USS Hoist (ARS-40)
USS Hoist was a Bolster-class rescue and salvage ship acquired by the U.S. Navy during World War II. Her task was to come to the aid of stricken vessels....
(ARS-40) during recovery operations, Navy diver Carl Brashear
Carl Brashear
Carl Maxie Brashear was the first African American to become a U.S. Navy Master Diver in 1970.-Early life:...
had his leg crushed in a deck accident and lost the lower part of his left leg. His story was the inspiration for the 2000 Cuba Gooding, Jr.
Cuba Gooding, Jr.
Cuba M. Gooding, Jr. is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his Academy Award-winning portrayal of Rod Tidwell in Cameron Crowe's 1996 film Jerry Maguire, and his critically acclaimed performance as Tré Styles in John Singleton's 1991 film Boyz n the Hood.-Early life:Gooding was born...
, film Men of Honor
Men of Honor
Men of Honor is a 2000 drama film, starring Robert De Niro and Cuba Gooding, Jr. The film was directed by George Tillman, Jr...
.
In March 2009, TIME magazine
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
identified the Palomares accident as one of the world's "worst nuclear disasters".
See also
- 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash
- Broken Arrow
- List of military nuclear accidents
External links
- John Howard, "Palomares Bajo", Southern Spaces, 23 August 2011.
- n-tv: Atomkatastrophe von 1966 - USA und Spanien entseuchen. Web posted and retrieved 2006-OCT-8.
- Oral history of Willard Franklyn SearleWillard Franklyn SearleCapt. Willard Franklyn "Bill" Searle Jr. USN was an American ocean engineer who was principally responsible for developing equipment and many of the current techniques utilized in United States Navy diving and salvage operations.-Background:Searle was born 17 January 1924 in Columbus, Ohio...
, Jr recounting the recovery project.