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Comment by leeoniya | Hacker News Reader

and if you really wanna shit yourself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash

"The two 3-4 megaton[a] MK. 39 nuclear bombs separated from the gyrating aircraft as it broke up between 1,000 and 2,000 feet (300 and 610 m). Five of the six arming mechanisms on one of the bombs activated, causing it to execute many of the steps needed to arm itself, such as charging the firing capacitors and, critically, deployment of a 100-foot-diameter (30 m) retard parachute. The parachute allowed that bomb to hit the ground with little damage."

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Or, closer to home (my home at least)...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950_British_Columbia_B-36_cra...

There is some debate as to how many years any bomb parts, including the important bits, may have sat open and unguarded on Canadian soil. There is even the possibility that the core still lies somewhere nearby as we have no definitive answer as to its recovery.

[Cores at this time were transported separate from the bomb. Arming involved manually inserting the core while in flight. It could be anywhere, even thrown into the sea.]

okay, i'll see your nuke loss and raise you one 000000 nuke launch code :)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2515598/Launch-code-...

That "code" was widely known ... to the people controlling the missiles, the only people in the world who could actually use it. Imho that means there was no code.

"Our launch checklist in fact instructed us, the firing crew, to double-check the locking panel in our underground launch bunker to ensure that no digits other than zero had been inadvertently dialed into the panel."

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/11/nearly-two-d...

Or to really get the heartbeat up:

"WASHINGTON — The Air Force said Wednesday it was only as "an added precaution" that an armored car was hurriedly parked atop a Minuteman 3 silo after the nuclear missile inside gave off false signals suggesting it was about to launch itself nearly four years ago." [They left the brakes off so that, should the cover slide open, the truck might fall into the silo and destroy the missile.]

http://articles.latimes.com/1987-10-29/news/mn-17348_1_minut...

that missle was never close to going anywhere it was a false alarm from eol sensors.

also the nuke loss in canada could never have been detonated. it was just a bunch of uranium that was dropped.

cant really compare with a fully armed 4 megaton nuke that fell out of a plane. for reference, Hiroshima yeild was 21 kT.

that's 21,000 vs 4,000,000

But that core in Canada is basically the opening scene from The Sum of All Fears. Every other device was retrieved asap. This one .. who knows.

Several nuclear weapons have been lost over the decades. There's one off the shore of Georgia that's never been found, one in Puget Sound, and a couple more. If you count submarines, there's also the wreckage of the Scorpion which contains two unrecovered nuclear warheads.

Holy guacamole. Hey Mike, do you (or anyone else) have links to save me searching? Thanks in advance! Morbid fascination/curiosity...

I double-checked my memory by going here and doing a cmd-F on "lost," "weapon," "warhead," and such:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accid...

This includes a lot more than just incidents where weapons were lost, but that may be a feature for you rather than a bug.

Thanks Mike...

I raise you the world almost ending several times.

First, actual launch orders for nuclear weapons that weren't carried out. [0][1]

Bassett immediately ordered the other launch officer, as Bordne remembers it, “to send two airmen over with weapons and shoot the [lieutenant] if he tries to launch without [either] verbal authorization from the ‘senior officer in the field’ or the upgrade to DEFCON 1 by Missile Operations Center.” [1]

Followed by a myriad of false alarms on both sides too numerous to exhaustively list. [2][3][4]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov

[1] http://thebulletin.org/okinawa-missiles-october8826

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...

[3] http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb371/

[4] http://nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/issu...

In 2013, ReVelle recalled the moment the second bomb's switch was found. “Until my death I will never forget hearing my sergeant say, 'Lieutenant, we found the arm/safe switch.' And I said, 'Great.' He said, 'Not great. It’s on arm.'”

Holy crap.

There is a fun conspiracy theory surrounding the crash and the armed status of the bomb; something about a Strangelove-esque conspiracy to initiate WWIII against the USSR, except in this case an alleged saboteur causes the plane crash. I made a brief search for it but you may have to go deeper into the bowels of the internet than I am currently willing in order to find it.

And let us not forget the Tybee bomb, which still hasn't been located.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tybee_Bomb

That's crazy!! I can't believe the weapon's uranium is still buried in that farm field.

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