Report On Dangers Of Nuclear Weapon Mishap

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28513, 17 February 1958, Page 9

Report On Dangers Of Nuclear Weapon Mishap

(Rec. 7 p.m.) WASHINGTON, February 14.

The Government admitted today that poisonous atomic dust could be spread by an accident to a plane, train or truck carrying nuclear weapons, if conventional explosives, used as part of some weapons, were detonated.

But the Defence Department and the Atomic Energy Commission said in a formal statement on the subject that the possibility of an accidental nuclear explosion was “so remote as to be negligible.” The statement said that nuclear weapons had been moved from places of manufacture to storage points for the last 12 years in many types of conveyances and also carried by planes and ships in manoeuvres.

During that time, there had been a few accidents, but not one of these accidents caused a nuclear explosion. The joint statement was issued a few weeks after publication of reports that there had been several Air Force crashes in ■which the planes carried nuclear weapons.

The statement said: “An accident such as the crash of an aircraft or severe wreck of a train carrying a nuclear weapon may cause this conventional explosive to detonate by impact or fire. “An accidental detonation of conventional explosives might possibly cause local scattering of nuclear materials in the form of dust. This would not be a fallout of fissioned materials, but unfissioned nuclear material could be spread locally, by wind or explosion. “Such materials could be hazardous only if taken internally, as by breathing. Even then, under strict safety measures adopted bv Defence and A.E.C. restricting the quantities that may be carried, it is unlikely that any person inadvertently exposed would inhale dangerous amounts of the unfissioned materials.” The statement said that key military commands and A.E.C. establishments had teams specially trained and equipped to decontaminate the -area in the immediate scene of an accident if nuclear materials had been scattered by fire or conventional explosion.