On december 5th 1965 the aircraft carrier uss ticonderoga was traveling about 70 miles
off the coast of okinawa japan during a training exercise an a4e skyhawk loaded with a one megaton
b43 nuclear bomb rolled off the deck the aircraft pilot and live bomb were lost in 16 000 feet of
ocean ships searched for hours after the accident but no trace of the plane or the thermal nuclear
bomb it carried were ever found this accident was kept a secret for more than 20 years but this
isn't the only time the us has had a problem with nuclear payloads the launch of sputnik won by the
soviets in 1957 cemented the soviets dominance in the space race for most of the next decade
the soviets can now launch an attack on u.s soil in only 30 minutes so fast that american bombers
might not be able to even get off their runways that launched america's response operation chrome
dome a mission that for nearly a decade would see at least a dozen b-52s flying 24 7 along
the soviet borders and around the world ready to counter-attack should the soviets fire a missile
with nuclear bombers flying around the clock air crews would have to say airborne for 24
hours straight refueled in the era all this meant there were bound to be a few accidents
today the department of defense has admitted that between 1950 and now there have been 32 broken
arrow accidents with six nuclear weapons lost that were never recovered here are a few of the other
times the us has had a serious nuclear mishap on march 10th 1956 a b-47 carrying two nuclear weapon
cores from mcdill air force base in florida to an overseas air base disappeared during a scheduled
air-to-air refueling over the mediterranean sea after becoming lost in thick clouds at 14 000 feet
the plane was never heard from again and its wreckage including the nuclear cores
were never found the exact weapons aboard remain classified but they're believed to be mark 15s
with payloads of 2.4 megatons each that's 250 times the destructive power of the hiroshima bombs
and if detonated would have left substantial nuclear fallout across most of the mediterranean
on january 24th 1961 a b-52 carrying two nuclear bombs crashed while trying to land
at an air base near goldsboro north carolina the two 3 to 4 megaton mark 39 thermonuclear bombs
were jettisoned midair to keep them away from the exploding aircraft one of the
bombs parachutes opened slowing its fall but the other hit the ground at 700 miles per hour
burying itself deep in the muddy swirl of the nahunta swamp each of the m39 bombs were equipped
with four interlocking safety mechanisms all of which had to be triggered to explode the bomb on
the bomb that landed intact three of the safety mechanisms had been activated during the fall
only a single switch prevented the bomb from detonating had it detonated everything in an 8.5
mile radius including the town of goldsboro would have been instantly vaporized and the other bomb
that hit the ground despite leaving a massive crater had dug itself so deep into the swamp
it could never be recovered so the air force has just left it there to this day on may 22nd 1957 a
v36 bomber was transporting a mark 17 nuclear bomb from briggs airfield in texas to kirland
air force base just miles south of albuquerque when suddenly the bomb fell through the bay doors
accounts from the crew of what caused the accidents vary but one version says that a
crew member in the bombay was being thrown around by sudden turbulence trying to steady himself
he accidentally grabbed the manual bomb release lever causing the weapon to fall through the bay
doors and plummet to the earth the bomb fell 1700 feet and exploded as it crashed in a nearby field
the bomb's conventional explosives detonated creating a huge crater but the nuclear capsule
didn't detonate and was found intact the only casualty a cow who had been grazing nearby
technically the only u.s casualty ever recorded from a nuclear bomb this particular bomb was
estimated to have been the most powerful bomb the us ever made at 10 megatons if the nuclear capsule
had detonated the bomb would have had an explosive force about 625 times that of the hiroshima bomb
and killed half a million u.s citizens and also that cow on may 22nd 1968 while returning to
its home base in norfolk virginia the nuclear attack submarine uss scorpion mysteriously sank
about 400 miles southwest of the azurus island to date the scorpion is one of only two u.s nuclear
submarines to have ever been lost and was one of four mysterious submarine disappearances in 1968.
in addition to the loss of all 99 crew members the scorpion was carrying two 250 kiloton torpedoes
tipped with nuclear warheads those warheads were never recovered next up you'd think it would be
pretty hard for a bomber carrying no nukes to cause a nuclear accident well on july 27
1956 after a training mission a b-47 bomber made a difficult landing at lincoln heath royal air force
base near suffolk england the plane skidded out of control and slid off the runway hitting a nuclear
weapon storage facility containing three mark vi nuclear bombs each bomb had about 8 000 pounds
of tnt as part of its trigger mechanism luckily the blazing jet fuel did not ignite the tnt and
the fire was extinguished by the base firefighters but the crew of the b-47 were killed and all three
bombs were damaged to the point they had to be shipped back to the us to be fixed investigators
thought it was a miracle that the bombs didn't explode these broken air accidents and missing
nukes are just the tip of the iceberg but it's not just the us the soviets have had their fair
share of broken arrows including the sinking of a soviet yankee one class nuclear submarine
they carried a whopping 34 nuclear weapons aboard the missiles were never recovered and the record
site is publicly known no new broken arrows have been reported for more than 40 years so either
the u.s got a lot better at handling their nukes or a lot better at covering up their accidents if
you're thinking about trying to recover one of these lost nuclear bombs don't bother you can
learn how to make your own with this video here and remember there is always more to
learn