Failure™ Magazine

The Day We Lost The H-Bomb

Cold war, hot nukes, and the worst nuclear weapons disaster in history.

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under History

How do the people of Palomares feel about the incident today?
Most of the townspeople don’t want any talk about it because the town is quite prosperous now. But it doesn’t go away, in part because development is encroaching on the most contaminated land. Some of the local politicians believe they may as well make lemonade out of lemons, and they are looking to build a theme park. There is also a Hollywood movie in the works—a romantic comedy [by Walt Disney Co.’s Miramax Films, tentatively titled Muchas Gracias, Bob Oppenheimer]—about an American serviceman who falls in love with a Spanish woman. Hopefully things will work out for the villagers, because they didn’t ask to have H-bombs dropped on their town.

Most people probably aren’t aware, but this wasn’t the only time the U.S. lost a nuclear bomb during the Cold War. There is one still missing off the coast of Georgia, for instance.
There are a bunch of them missing. And I’m sure there are some that aren’t public knowledge. The American military would have loved to keep Palomares a secret but there were just too many witnesses. And who knows how many the Soviets lost during the Cold War. There’s a lot of unexploded ordinance out there.

In spite of what happened at Palomares and Thule, one could argue that SAC had a pretty good safety record. 
SAC was the safest command in the Air Force. They were like a safety cult and known for being very uptight. But in spite of everything they did, accidents still happened. And some say that Palomares proved how safe SAC was because two planes collided and four H-bombs fell yet only a handful of people were killed. In that regard it was a success for the Air Force.

Barbara Moran’s Web site

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