cross-referenced news and research resources about
nuclear weapons accidents
"Nuclear weapons are designed with great care to explode only when deliberately armed and fired. Nevertheless, there is always a possibility that, as a result of accidental circumstances, an explosion will take place inadvertently. Although all conceivable precautions are taken to prevent them, such accidents might occur in areas where weapons are assembled and stored, during the course of loading and transportation on the ground, or when actually in the delivery vehicle, e.g., an airplane or a missile."
Atomic Energy Commission/Department of Defense, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, 1962.
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updated Tue. August 13, 2024
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Markets Insider
January 13, 2018
Tallying up nuclear weapons accidents is exceedingly difficult, especially due to their classified nature, but information that has been released is alarming. "[M]any dozens of incidents involving nuclear warheads are known to have occurred in the United States — and likely many more that have not beenÃâà...
Big Think (blog)
December 8, 2017
The United States tries hard to keep nuclear weapons away from countries it considers foes. Given how close the world came to nuclear armageddon during the Cold War, and recent threats from so-called “rogue states” like North Korea, it may seem like an essential goal. But America's strategy forÃâà...
NPR
October 3, 2017
WELNA: Broken arrows - that's military jargon for nuclear weapons accidents. There have also been false alarms of an imminent nuclear attack. Happily, things have never gone further than that - so far. MARTIN: David Welna, in studio with us still, is there any example of when the president's authority overÃâà...
Business Insider
August 1, 2017
Department of Defense via Federation of American Scientists Schlosser is the author of "Command and Control," an investigation into nuclear weapons accidents that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. To write the book, he spent more than six years steeped in declassified government materials andÃâà...
National Catholic Reporter (blog)
January 10, 2017
Over more than 600 pages, Schlosser catalogues the dangers of just having nuclear weapons: accidents in planes, on runways and in missile silos that almost became nuclear diasters, misinterpreted data and just plan mistakes that almost caused nuclear wars, tales of mismanagement, neglect andÃâà...
The Guardian
September 20, 2016
The high security gates of the Atomic Weapons Establishment, where warheads are assembled and maintained. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian. Military convoys carrying nuclear weapons through Britain's cities and towns have experienced 180 mishaps and incidents, including collisions,Ãâà...
Mother Jones
September 11, 2016
It would be impossible to fully replicate the depth of dread and disbelief that Command and Control—Eric Schlosser's 2013 book chronicling the Air Force's history of nuclear weapons mishaps—bestows on its readers. This is not to say that the haunting new documentary of the same name, co-written byÃâà...
Popular Mechanics
February 11, 2016
During the Cold War nukes rolled off ships, got involved in collisions, and nearly were set on fire. History: It's terrifying. By Kyle Mizokami. Feb 11, 2016. A U.S. Navy A-4E Skyhawk attack jet rolls off the side of an aircraft carrier, pilot still strapped inside and a thermonuclear bomb packing the equivalent of a million tons ofÃâà...
Daily Record
August 16, 2015
SEARCY, Ark. – Directions to the site of the worst nuclear weapon accident in the history of the U.S. are hard to come by. A teenage convenience-store clerk had never heard the tale. A cattle rancher said he thought it was “over on Clay Road.” A utility worker said to look for a boatyard right before ArkansasÃâà...
Department of Defense
May 18, 2015
This year's Nuclear Weapon Accident Incident Exercise, or NUWAIX 2015, took place on Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, located on the Kitsap Peninsula in the state of Washington. The Defense Department whole-of-government exercise was held May 5-8, 2015, and involved home-grown terrorists and aÃâà...
Mother Jones
November 10, 2014
Thanks to a steep learning curve in the design and handling of nuclear weapons, a continuing emphasis on readiness before safety, and a history of mismanagement, the United States military has had a frightening number of near-misses. (Click on the box below for our companion story about theÃâà...
NPR
August 12, 2014
If you look at the Pentagon's official list of how many nuclear weapons accidents, serious accidents, we have — what they call "broken arrows" — the list contains 32 accidents. But I was able to obtain a document through the Freedom of Information Act that said just between the years 1950 and 1968, thereÃâà...
Mother Jones
September 16, 2013
But the deeper I got, the more I realized that the subject of nuclear weapons accidents hadn't really been written about, and that the threat was much greater than I thought it was. So what started out ..... With this nuclear weapon accident in Arkansas, there was a remarkable lack of accountability. The peopleÃâà...
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by Jaya Tiwari and Cleve J. Gray
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nuclear weapons
military accidents:
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