Latest nuclear mishaps join a long and threatening list

Press, 25 August 1983, Page 21

Latest nuclear mishaps join a long and threatening list

Two newly disclosed events bring to more than 40 the number of known mishaps to superpower nuclear munitions and strategic systems with near-catastrophic possibilities. The first, disclosed by the Pentagon this month, is the loss of a Soviet nuclear-powered submarine, possibly armed with a cruise missile, in the north Pacific. According to Department of Defence sources, the C-class submarine sank with the loss of more than 90 lives. United States intelligence is believed to have become aware of the disaster when spy satellites registered salvage activity near the Kamchatka Peninsula. The submarine was raised a few days ago.

The disclosure coincided with an allegation by the newspaper columnist, Jack Anderson, that in 1980 a United States Titan intercontinental missile came close to being fired by accident at its target in the Soviet Union. Anderson says it happened during a test exercise and the disaster was averted only when an air force officer had the presence of mind to cut off all power systems. The Pentagon has made no comment. Such events within United States competence are officially recorded as “broken .arrow” accidents (involving the risk of a nuclear detonation, a non-nuclear detonation, theft, or a “public hazard, actual or implied”) or as “bent spear” or “dull sword” (incidents of a lesser kind). Though only some half-a-dozen Russian accidents have come to light, there is no reason to suppose that they are less frequent in the Soviet Union.

The list of United States accidents and “incidents” since 1953 includes:

May 19, 1953: Sudden wind change before the “dirty” nuclear test “Harry” causes long-term civilian radiation injuries in Utah. 1956: B-36 bomber drops an atomic bomb (no explosion) on barren territory near Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico.

July 27, 1956: Fuel from a B-47 Bomber engulfs a nuclear bomb store at Lakenheath, England.

From

ANDREW WILSON in London

February 2, 1958: B-47 in mid-air collision near Hunter, Georgia, accidentally jettisons part of a nuclear weapon “in transportable condition and not capable of nuclear explosion.” June 8, 1960: Air-defence missile site catches fire at McGuire, New Jersey; two explosions severely damage a Bomarc missile carrying a nuclear warhead. October 5, 1960: Radar malfunction in the ballistic missile earlywarning system at Thule, Greenland, falsely warns North American Air Defence (Norad) headquarters of a “massive” Soviet missile strike approaching the United States.

June 4, 1962: Thor intermediaterange missile fails in a highaltitude thermonuclear weapon test; the one-megaton warhead is destroyed over the Jonston Island Pacific Test Range. June 20, 1962: Second Thor failure. The missile and warhead are

destroyed at an altitude of 200 miles.

April, 1963: United States ballis-tic-missile submarine Thresher is lost off the Atlantic coast owing to the imperfect installation of a propulsion-system relief valve. January 17, 1966: B-52 carrying four H-bombs collides in mid-air with KC-135 tanker near Palomares, Spain, and crashes. The bombs become separated from the aircraft, necessitating an extensive search and clean-up operation.

January 21, 1968: B-52 crashes near Thule, Greenland; four Hbombs are lost.

October 15, 1969: B-52 carrying two nuclear weapons collides with a KC-135 near Glen Bean, Kentucky; weapons undamaged. February 20, 1971: Operator at Norad headquarters accidentally transmits an emergency message ordering all United States broadcasting stations off the air by order of the President. For 40 minutes the operator cannot find the code

with which to cancel the message. February 27, 1972: Hoax teletype message to Coast Guard units says President Nixon has been assassinated (on his visit to China) and the Third World War declared by VicePresident Agnew. October 23, 1975: Canister containing a 20-kiloton bomb falls down a test shaft at the Nevada nuclear test site.

August 23, 1978: Oxidizer gas cloud engulfs a Titan II missile site in Kansas; one man dies.

October 9,1979: False warning of a limited missile attack is sent from Norad headquarters to nation-wide defence command centres. Interceptor planes are scrambled and missile bases put on alert.

June 6, 1980: False alarms indicating a Soviet missile attack are registered by Norad computers at Colorado Springs; 100 nucleararmed B-52s are alerted for takeoff.

September 18, 1980: Rocket fuel

explosion due to “human error” blows a Titan II warhead from its silo near Damascus, Arkansas. November, 1981: United States Poseidon missile plunges 17 feet on an accidentally-released winch cable during servicing operations at Holy Loch submarine base, Scotland. Soviet accidents include: 1958: Nuclear waste buried in shallow pits near Blagoveshensk in the Urals overheats and causes a chemical explosion. Radioactive dust is blown for hundreds of miles. Unknown number of people die of radiation sickness and a large area has to be permanently evacuated. 1960: Marshal Nedelin, a senior, officer, and Soviet space experts are killed when a moon rocket explodes. 1968: Nuclear submarine sinks after an explosion in the Pacific. 1970: N-class nuclear submarine sinks in the eastern Atlantic. September, 1974: Kashin-class guided-missile destroyer, reportedly carrying nuclear weapons, explodes and sinks in the Black Sea. August, 1976: Soviet nuclearpowered cruise-missile submarine collides with United States frigate Vago in the'lonian sea. 1982: Soviet nuclear submarine runs aground off Sweden. Recent incidents, particularly the reported near-launch of the Titan, could explain President Reagan’s intiative last month in proposing a further modernisation of the Washington-Moscow “hot line.”

The “hot line,” originally set up in 1963, was improved 12 years ago by the installation of new teletype circuits, coinciding with the 1971 Accident Measures Agreement. Under the agreement, each side undertook to inform the other immediately if a nuclear weapon had been launched in error. The Soviet Union rejected the Reagan proposal as a “diversionary move” from the still-stalled Geneva arms control talks on strategic and intermediate-range nuclear weapons. It remains on the table, however. Copyright — London Observer Service.