Air Force B-52 Crashes with 4 Nuclear Bombs On Board | Broken Arrow
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 พ.ย. 2024
- Find out why a United States Air Force (USAF) B-52G Stratofortress bomber with four B28FI thermonuclear bombs on a "Chrome Dome" alert mission crashed near Thule Air Base in the Danish territory of Greenland.
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This video has been recorded and edited in 4K resolution and 60FPS.
I met the pilot of that flight at a Lowe's store in Florida in 2018. I was helping him put something in his car when I noticed we both had aircrew wings plates on the front. I mentioned that I was a former crew member stationed a Plattsburgh NY in the early 90's. He then, very matter-of-factly, told me the entire nuke bailout story. It was only after I got home and looked up the details of what he said, that I realized who I had been speaking to.
Pretty cool dude.
Thats pretty kool
😻
Hey man, my Dad was a KC135 pilot out of Plattsburgh from I believe 1985 to 1987. I was born in town there in 86. I haven't been back but I hope to one day soon.
@Daniel V I was a KC135 boom operator at Plattsburgh from 90 - 92. I haven't been back yet either, but it was a beautiful place while I was there.
I was a co-pilot on a B-52 flight when fire broke out in the forward radar bay. The smoke from the fire billowed up into the cockpit and within a few seconds we could barely see any of the instruments let alone see out the forward wind screens. We were almost in the same situation as this crew..... but someone remembered the cabin pressure dump switch and threw it on, just before EVERYTHING went black. The cabin smoke immediately vented overboard. Unfortunately this crew did not do that, otherwise they would have been able to land at Thule. As I remember there was no emergency procedure to cover such a situation. I hope the writers of the B-52's "Dash 1" added a procedure to cover that emergency.
My dad was a B-52 engine mechanic. It's because of him that I joined the USAF in 1978. I retired in 2000. My first assignment was Castle AFB. I worked on the TAC side of the base, but had to walk through a huge (8 B-52??) hangar to get to my "Tower" inside the hangar. I would often have to walk underneath them to get to work. For a young airman, this was the coolest thing ever! Thanks for your service Sir.
Wow!
I was on an RC-135 when we lost oil pressure on an engine and had to shut it down. The electrical generator control box on the flight deck was supposed to automatically disengage. Sadly, it didn't and the cockpit filled with smoke, although not extremely severe. We also had all gone on masks right away.
As the nav 1 who always carried electrical instruments in my little black bag, I quickly cut the safety wires to the box and removed it, still smoking. Then I remembered we had a manual sextant port in the cockpit. Opening it successfully vented the smoke. It's never fun to have smoke in the cockpit, that's for sure.
@@Recon135 Good Suggestion. I hadn't thought of that. We had a sextant position just behind the pilot's seat. Don't know, though, if it had an opening to the ambient outside air. Of course opening such would mean everyone would have to be on oxygen over 10,000 feet.
@@badguy1481 We had a wee bit more space in the 135. Our sextant port was behind the side saddle nav(s) right before the door to the main cabin. It had a round sliding door to the ambient air to allow the sextant periscope to be inserted.
The "Cold War" lasted nearly 45 years. These type of missions were conducted 24 hrs a day, every day,
every month, every year for the duration. Both sides had many "accidents". It is amazing that we are all still here.
Seems like a colossal waste of tax payer money.
Why? The failsafe on the weapons clearly work. As for the radiation spread events, the military would have said that is an "operational risk" that was acceptable.
@@djb6496 It's recycled money. All of the money stays in the USA, it is collected by a government and then given back to the economy, in schools, in materials, in fuel, in virtually everything, the pilots are trained by US trainers, every cent gets pumped back into the economy apart from the small percentages of budgets paid for foreign expertese and materials.
Pretty sure Chrome Dome was shut down shortly after this.
@@sirbader1 ,
SAC military flag officers were operating in opposition to orders from the civilian authorities who had banned these missions from being done.
RIP the 410 Danish workers who died from cancer, after cleaning up the mess and radioactive ice. Making this one of the deadliest air accidents ever... (a family friend was amongst those casualties)
Who cares, USA, USA, USA! Freedum! Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics needs their profit. and our politicians would like to their power for the eternity of their lives.
Sorry for your losses.
🙏🙏
@@redstwok1123 At least care for the lives lost
@@theaircraftnerd0345 I say what I say because I care. We have an empire that slaughters people for the sake of their power and their donors' profits, all in the name of freedom and democracy. Calling it out is the only way to show respect for the innocent dead.
RIP to the copilot who didn't make it. May his soul live in peace
Yep, right, and he was one of the maniacs that indirectly prematurely killed many innocent Greenlanders!
@@rossbrown6641 He was just following order. Can't blame him for that. Blame the political elites!
I disagree. He was willing to drop thermonuclear weapons on innocent civilians because he was told to. He wouldn’t have anyway of knowing that the US had been attacked. He was just following orders doesn’t cut it either. That’s the same excuse the police use when beating the shit out of pregnant women and old men.
The minute the cushions were given extra attention at the beginning I thought, uh oh, here we go. Damn cushions...
I work for a flying squadron at Grissom ARB. The pilots all got a "seat cushion" that they take onboard with them, but no one individual ever takes four of them. I'm as you, when I saw that detail highlighted at the beginning of the video, I knew something was up.
It's like the one where the broken $5 lightbulb in the Eastern Airlines plane in Miami ends up bringing the whole thing down. Stupid little things like that. 😞
Had it not been the cushions it would have been that guys ass lol
9 times out of 10 they haven't set the flaps. Cushions- who would have thought putting something highly inflammable next to a hot air vent could pose a risk?
Hi, I was in SAC at Wurtsmith in Michigan and arrived there when 60001 arrived. If anyone was around then I would love to hear from you. I am 78 now and there aren't many of us left. I want to thank this channel for recreating this. SAC was it understood by very many people ever. It should have been a force of it's own. To know SAC you have to know LaMay. Without him I don't think SAC could have existed. One of a kind. These conversations in here could have never existed back in the day. I have a number of memories about him that are very meaningful to me. Today when I see these birds I am so sad to see the aging but then when I look into the mirror I understand.i lol comment more later.
pls write a book
You still in Michigan?
Would love to chat in person, and hear your stories
@@Gusomilkprod no, I left Mich in 98. To this very day I can't say I miss my windshield scraper. :D.
I live in Michigan and visited Wurtsmith for the first time in 2018. It was cool to see the old water tower that still had the unit shield on it, just there in some dude's backyard lol. The old airman quarters are now senior living facilities. I actually know a couple folks who were among the last stationed there around 1990.
@@User31129 I was fortunate to be part of the final decommisioning of Wurtsmith AFB in 1993. For me, Wurtsmith was one of the best kept secrets of the AF. Loved my time there.
Sometimes the comments section is even more entertaining than the video. In this I mean the experience of the viewers oftentimes fills in the details of such flights and information related to similar flights. It's refreshing to be able to read comments from people who have decades of experience with such events.
I agree with you Bill. It was a story all of its own.
When the H came it changed the world for ever and I will soon be gone and yet my birds will just begin another 40 years of service with the new engines. I am going to have a hard time not seeing those 8 TF33P7 PWs.
Have you heard if the new engines will have shotgun starters? I don't see a need for them in that they don't set on alert any longer.
@OBTEN Agreed. It is just amazing that the new upgrades got through with a go. It would kind of be like to them calling us back into service for these next 20 years,lol. But how could we design, build and man the buff's capabilities for this coming century. I still can't believe what the 52H cost per unit compared to today's prices for even small planes capabilities. How many 52,'s could you build for one 35 fighter jet. Sometimes, occasionally getting old is funny😂
Tucson TV news had video yesterday of 1016 that had been torn apart for transport to Oklahoma to be used there for planning the successor to our H. The fuselage was being towed over road over three week trip. It was interesting to see what was holding the wing root on. We had flex wing/stiff wing changes a number of times the first 3 years and I am not sure what they ended up going with. I remember looking out at the tips as we were doing ACR runs and I couldn't believe my eyes. But you could tell the difference in the ride. I can't imagine what Chuck Fisher did to them but I remember what he to the tail of 61023. He also brought my bird back from the factory during the crisis and I hadn't seen her for 3 months. But before he could get it stopped,.the front wheels were in flames because the circuit breaker was pulled to the anti skid. Not a good idea. So many stories about him. Some of this is recorded but I would love to read all of them.
When I was in the Air Force on C-130 we were stationed on a SAC base with B-52s in West Texas. They kept 5 B-52 on the elect pad loaded-with nuclear weapons. One day a cart transporting a nuclear weapon turned over on the ramp. This caused a broken arrow alert to go out. Even minor accidents with a nuclear weapons caused a broken arrow alert.
If I recall this would be considered a "Bent Spear" incident.
Craig Kersting I have never heard that term used. It’s always been a Broken Arrow.
@@clkersting No, it would be a broken arrow incident. Bent spear incidents involve breaches of handling and security; broken arrows are accidents that can cause a public safety hazard. A cart suddenly turning over is an accident, not a handling or security breach.
@@DJ-sn2xj Thank you.
Sounds like Dyess AFB early 80s, I remember that day clearly.
I started out watching your videos with Captain Sully landing on the Hudson & have been watching ever since. One thing I have learned in watching, is that it takes ALOT to learn how to operate & fly a plane. Another reason I will stay my butt on the ground! LOL! Thank you for the work you put into each video!
They are awesome to watch ,☆HNY 22 ☆
Aircrafts are safer than cars statistically. But still some people want more money for themselves than safety of other people (for ex. early MCAS software in 737 MAX). Thats why some designs has some hidden "mistakes". Thats why some cars or planes crashes from time to time. If You wanna be safe, then think about safety instead money.
The main thing that must be understood, is that MAD worked and the policy maintained peace from 1945 till present. Nobody wants the planet destroyed. Just as well.
Well not quite. The term “mutual assured destruction,” along with the derisive acronym “MAD,” was actually coined by an opponent of the doctrine. Military analyst Donald Brennan argued that attempting to preserve an indefinite stalemate did little to secure U.S. defense interests in the long term and that the reality of U.S. and Soviet planning reflected continued efforts by each superpower to gain a clear nuclear advantage over the other. Brennan personally advocated on behalf of an antiballistic missile defense system that would neutralize Soviet warheads before they could detonate. Such an obvious break with the status quo would thoroughly undermine the Soviets’ “assured-destruction capability” and would likely trigger a new arms race. Brennan’s plan found supporters in the U.S. government, the most prominent of whom was U.S. Pres. Ronald Reagan. Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, proposed in 1983, would become the centrepiece of disarmament negotiations throughout the 1980s, despite the fact that the technology behind the program was far from proven. The Soviets did indeed attempt to pursue their own antiballistic missile defense system for a time, but shrinking military budgets and, finally, the collapse of the Soviet Union spelled the end of the superpower model that had enabled the mutual assured destruction doctrine.
NONSENSE.
As IRAN's president said at the UN a decade ago "THE UN WAS SOLELY CREATED TO STOP WARS ACROSS THE PLANET. Since your creation...there have been 63 MAJOR WARS!!!"
Amerikkka LOVES fake war!
@@jonbongjovi1869 You are wrong. America loves any war!!!
Been watching you videos for almost 5 years…Every time I watch your videos I get amazed.Keep it up!!!👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Been watchin for 1 year. Glad I found this channel.
U r a die hard fan.
@@s.kirtivasen15699 Thanks man…
You joined just 10 months ago 😳
I've been watching since early 2018 when I was bored in study hall as a junior in high school. It's crazy that I've been watching them four years sometime next month or later. (Can't remember what month it was)
"The cabin's temperature becomes uncomfortably hot" 7:55. No mention of a request to turn down the uncomfortable heat.
Amazing, thanks for the story; an excellent reminder of the risks associated with military operations and continuously improving graphics that put us in the cockpit with those brave fellow soldiers, sailors and Marines. Salute!
How about the risks created by a lying military that conducted these secret/illegal flights without telling anyone. And people wonder why no one trusts the government or authorities?
Brave? Over-paid and Over-fed!
Imagine being 7 with 6 parachutes... what were the talking before they ejected ?
And imagine being D'amario and surviving this and learning it is your fault that your teammate died (and that a few bombs exploded in the nature but in the 60s that's only material!)
Yeah, that's fucked up, shoulda grabbed him before ejecting, if i had stayed inside tho, i woulda tried to drive the plane, but says they couldn't see shet so i understand why they ejected..
He wasn’t in an ejection seat but I am pretty sure he had a parachute.
@@danielbryant6395 he probably got sucked into the engine. Poor fella!
@@KingLouisDaSaint ". At some point during his exit into the slipstream, he struck his head on the hatch edge or the electronic countermeasures antennas on the bottom of the fuselage. When the rescue teams found him far north of the air base, part of the nylon of his unopened parachute pack was melted and fused. The fire also appeared to have melted parts of his boot soles. Most accounts report he was not conscious during the fall."
@@plmn93 Small mercy that, whatever fear or adrenaline he felt in the leadup to his demise, he was at least knocked out before having to find out the hard way - while hurtling toward the Earth, that his parachute may have failed anyway...
I hope you all have a great next year, and amazing videos as always, the amount of time and effort you must spend on these is amazing
Having a 24/7 "airborne readiness" was always going to stress the accident/failure rate of aircraft. Missiles may not be any better, but their failure rate only gets expressed during a launch, a test or operational one. Thus they are "safer".
How hot does it have to be onboard for pillows to ignite?!? I live someplace with extreme heat and can honestly say that this has never been a concern of mine. Here I am leaving pillows in the car with reckless abandonment...
Very very hot. Well over 200* Fahrenheit.
It must have been right by a vent or heating duct.Just like a space heater,If you leave something flammable next to it,it will catch on fire.
@@iuhsdihdslifuvholuidfh It was directly underneath the heating system.
Bedding materials have to have flame retardant stuff to reduce the chance of catching fire now. I’m sure that wasn’t the case in the 60’s.
@@mangos2888 Correct. In the 60s safety was more of an after shock thing. It even happened in the NASA Moon Shot trilogy.
I'm related to the instructor on the B52 that went down in northern VT December 9th, 1960. After the mistaken eject occurred, he radioed Otis AFB and said, (And I'll never forget this) "I've got an empty B52 strapped to my ass, what do you propose I do?" The decision was to abandon the airplane as the cockpit seats go with the ejected pilots. As he had no ejection seat, he bailed out the bomb bay doors. Ended up in a pine tree in upstate NY with several broken chute cords. They also lost one crewmember, the tail gunner, whose chute failed to open. Luckily the bombs that night were all electronic, not real.
A B-52 also crashed in Faro, NC in 1961 with two nuclear bombs on board, the Captain released both bombs before the jet crashed, one bomb fell into a swamp area and could never be recovered, the other bomb was found about two miles away and all arming switches had been armed except for one, it was reported that if just one bomb had exploded, everything within a 100 mile radius would have been destroyed.
Yep! I was in the 8th AF, 68th (formerly 4241st) Bomb Wing at Seymour Johnson AFB in Goldsboro NC and worked on the ASB-9 Bomb Nav System on board that very plane: Serial # 58-187. It was the 24th B52 to be lost. It was flying a "COVERALL" alert mission.
It was on Jan 24, 1961. Went to school with the boom operator of the KC-135 that was topping off the fuel when he noticed a fuel leak from the starboard wing tank at high altitude. It was later followed by an explosion and the wing broke off. The plane landed 13 miles from my home early in the morning.
We lost 5 crew but 3 survived. My neighbor helped de-arm the weapon that was hanging from a tree. I knew the only African American crew member in our Wing-Major Maddox: he has no clue how he survived, but he did. I saw the Aircraft Commander in the Base Exchange 2 weeks later in front of me at the checkout counter. His hands were shaking so bad, his wife had to reach into his pocket to get his wallet. God in Heaven those crew members who flew BUFF were made of some tough stuff. I went to one crash before that in Denton, NC. The plane was from Dow AFB Maine. I was just a snot nosed kid and saw what happens to the human body when it free falls from 33, 000 ft.!! Could not keep much down for a long time after being on site for 3 days! Took me years to ever eat semi-sweet chocolate again; it was the only thing that I could keep down except water.
I did not know aircrafts like these had ejection seats.
Yes, the 2 scary ones eject downward, while the other 4 eject upward.
Two lower guy prayer:
May this aircraft climb high enough above the ground so that us lower guys have enough altitude to safely eject and not get pushed into the ground.
@@davidhoffman1278 "Yes, the 2 scary ones eject downward" Since B-52 fixed wings is above fuslage instead of belly, The ejection downward isn't much of risk.
@@arthurprather6720 ,
I have watched enough videos of takeoff failures of aircraft to know that when the top guys are ejecting at 20ft AGL that any lower guys are going to be ejecting into the runway.
Boeing could have put all 6 of the stations on top with sequenced ejections from aft to forward, but for various reasons they didn't. I believe that they could have put 6 to 8 stations up top and still met the rapid alert crew boarding times SAC desired.
@@davidhoffman1278 "sequenced ejections from aft to forward"
Sounds like a recipe for malfunction during an emergency, and dead aircrew.
@@geoh7777 ,
No, it works relatively well. Aft most seats go first. The port aft most seat would go slightly to port to avoid the vetical fin. The starboard aft most seat would go slightly to starboard to avoid the vertical fin. Then the middle seats would follow similar trajectories. Finally the front seats would eject following similar trajectories, but spaced from the previous seats by the forward velocity of the aircraft.
It's a larger version of what a 4 seat EA-6B ejection sequence would be, except with hatches instead of canopies. Even back in the 1950s there were analog mechanical computers that could be programmed to cause ejection seats to follow designated trajectories.
Before intercontinental missles our constant deterent was the "Chrome Dome" program of armed B52s in the air at all times.
Nice of the Americans to have roughly 20 nukes sitting overhead at all times without anyone being aware
@@rossrankin309 rod butler was aware
@@rossrankin309 Stanley Kubric was aware
@@rossrankin309 You don't think the Russians had them flying around too, fool.
@@Flying_Snakes The Russians kept theirs in the Soviet Union, they didn't go around dropping them on allied countries like Spain and Greenland...
Wow poor Svitenko... he is the one who fights the fire and used 2 extinguishers to try and put it out, then everyone in an ejection seat just dips out like see ya later and he dies because he hit his head trying to jump out of an open hatch. At least he didn’t have to fall like 30,000 feet through Mt Everest conditions freezing with no oxygen to die on impact
I know everyone was like ✌️ peace out….
@@mattyk19751 lol right... man imagine how chaotic all that would be then youre like ok guys i almost have the fire out but we might need to bail... guys?
@@penguiin12 guys? Guys? Those mother fuckers!!! 🤣🤣 it’s not funny but it is….
A friend of mine who was in the Danish armed forces was involved in that clean up. All the personel he knew involved in the clean up all died of weird cancers and then finally my friend died also of a very rare cancer caused by radioactive exposure. A sad way to go.
In all more than 400 Danish deaths were attributed to the accident clean up.
Excellent video quality as usual, you're doing great work on your videos👌🏽
As a Flight Engineer on P3 and 747 we had cockpit, fuselage ducting and cabin smoke and fume elimination procedures for these events. It was practiced on almost every evaluated sim ride I ever did along with LOFT or crew training. These procedures were carried out by the FE in coordination with both pilots, there were recall items followed by the checklist as is normal for any emergency procedure. The B52 surely had these procedures in place. Thankfully removing the bleed air source and isolating ducting fixes most of these scenarios but not all of course. There was a time critical factor in that in these situations we had to don oxy masks, as they were not worn on our faces normally, as well as helmets and the flying crew member normally masked up first as the flying pilot. I know nothing about the 52 and I wasn’t there so I never make comment on how a crew dealt with a situation only try to learn from it. Terrifying situation to be in for any aircrew.
Great video with in-depth details and description. Amazing video to wind up the year.
Excellent work TheFlightChannel.
Come on now, we all know the last F in BUFF doesn't mean Fella.
RIP
Leonard Svitenko
(1940-1968)
I’ve been a fan for as long as I can remember your videos never let me down
I was born at Ellsworth AFB and raised right outside the gates. I loved hearing the B52’s fly - the sound of freedom 🇺🇸 I’m sad that Ellsworth is no longer the second largest SAC Base in the world, it looks more like a ghost town.
RIP to all lost in peacetime and wartime.
Yeah. Freedom in metal box 24/7. Freedom in US? With that kind of law? With NSA watching you whole time? With possibility to go to prison for many years if you do more of less small and unintentional mistake with copyright law? Sorry but no, thanks.
This accident occurred on 1/21/68. The USS Pueblo was captured by North Korea two days later on 1/23/68. The Tet offensive began in Viet Nam on the 1/31/68. That must have been a busy week at the Pentagon.
I'm still back on: it was so hot, the cushions caught on fire?? That is some frackin' hot! Were they especially flammable, or were they set down over the hot air vent or something?
That's what I replied too. In order for a cushion near the bottom of the plane to catch fire, to reach flash-point, the people would have been scalded already, so it seems clear, SOMEONE must have dropped a glowing cigarette butt on/near the cushions.
Maybe Di'Mario when he left downstairs to become co-pilot? Smoked up some nicotine before co-piloting? and then Svitenko wasn't aware of a still-burning cigaratte butt until too late?
*- OR -*
Maybe Svitenko was smoking and got drowsy when the very warm 'bleed'heat warmed up the place, and dropped the cigarette like a smoking-in-bed situation?
@@mtlicq I guess we'll never know, unless someone confessed in a diary. But on the whole "someone was smoking" (even before the plane took off, and the butt was smouldering) is a more likely solution than "it was, like, super hot in there!" People in those days smoked like chimneys all over the place, including at work.
The cushions in HOBO-28 we're of a different type from those in commercial, and private planes, plus, the type of material used was very flammable, which why the hot bleed air ignited the cushions that were sitting on the bleed air duct that fed the lower deck.
The cushions were adjacent or sitting on the actual duct.
Yes they were placed on a heating vent under the chair .. important detail!
RIP Leonard Svitenko and my personal condolences to his family and friends
As many hours as they flew, it was a statistical certainty one would eventually crash.👍🇺🇸 P.S. Nobody in the military ever called it a fella!😂🤣
This is a 'PG" rated Channel.... lol
TFC Didn't want to be demonetised by TH-cam.
I wouldn’t call it ugly either. B-52 is a beautiful plane.
@@marjoriemorris5849 it’s a matter of taste
Unfortunately there have been two that I know of that crashed while carrying nuclear weapons. The second happened not fair from my home on Jan 23 1961. I had about two weeks prior to that celebrated my 1st birthday . While over Goldsboro NC the B 52 after the crew noticed a fuel leak started breaking up. The crew managed to bail and the two 4 MG ton Mark 39 thermonuclear weapons were dropped one burying in a field so deep " supposedly " they had to leave part of it and the other they found and removed. Later it was revealed the weapon they recovered had gone thru all arming procedures with only a dollar electrical switch preventing it from detonating..
I know another instance in Georgia near the intercoastal waterway one nuck bomb was purposely dropped as the plane carrying it was going down and it was supposedly safer to jettison it than crash with it aboard. I don't know the details and can't imagine just leaving it.
Obviously it didn t detonate but it also " supposedly " wasn t recovered.
Anybody have an idea what the half life of app. 6 kg of Plutonium is?
As a civilian I worked on several SAC bases in the 60s, those were incredably special places.
The photos and animated Illustrations add a lot to the presentation. I've watched most of your videos and they have improved a great deal.
These videos are becoming more and more sophisticated. Thank you and congratulations.
My father was a radar specialist stationed at Thule during this incident
A nice video to bid a farewell to 2021.
Keep it up TFC and Happy New Year
My dad was USAF and part of Chrome Dome as a metallurgist, making sure the 52’s skin was airworthy. So I was born on a SAC base and basically grew up on them. You know how when we, as children, first ask our dads what they do when they go to work? The answer I got was pretty blunt, but the worst part of it was the follow up, that went; “But don’t worry, son. When they shoot theirs and we shoot ours, they’re gonna aim at the SAC bases, so you won’t feel a thing. Just a flash of light and POOF! You’re gone..”. And even though I was only 8 years old or so, I remember thinking, ‘should I be hearing this?!’ Anyway, I’m glad that hasn’t come true.
Y'all think we can get this guy 2M in 2022?
The Boeing B-52: One of the MOST AMAZING PLANES ever built !! Way to go guys!!!
The research that goes into these videos is amazing.
Brilliant simulation. The segment in the moonlight where the 52 is flying towards the viewer over the glacier ice is absolutely beautiful. Very accurate telling of this classic Broken Arrow story. That Curtis Lemay was something else. He and General Power were a dangerous duo in charge of the USAF nuclear capability. Both believed WWIII was inevitable and the US was squandering away their numerical advantage in strategic weapons the longer we waited to start it. LeMay intentionally violated Soviet airspace on many occasions with reconnaissance flights hoping to prod the USSR into a nuclear exchange. He interpreted discrete weapon release policies, designed to grant strike authority to USAF commanders should Washington DC be destroyed in a first strike, in a way that granted him authority to release nuclear weapons in normal circumstances. We did come close during this period especially during the Cuban Missile Crisis where LeMay, now USAF Chief of Staff, intentionally launched an ICBM "test" flight during the most tense part of the crisis and flew a U-2 spy plane into the Soviet Union claiming it was on a weather reconnaissance mission and had gotten lost. Very dangerous time and a very dangerous man. Bobby and Jack Kennedy get lots of credit for defusing the crisis but the Soviets showed enormous restraint despite the attempts of the US military brass to escalate it into a decisive full scale war.
Very true
Since LeMay and Power’s actions were not secret from Washington after the fact - how did they escape punishment for what was some of the greatest and most dangerous treason in history?
Addendum - whilst all of that is true and corroborated - it is also true that part of the reason Russia was so restrained is that most of their arsenal - claimed or otherwise was not 'launch ready' - the threat was mostly with the notion that they may have all of this stuff - when in reality half of it would have not got out of the silos and most of the other half did not exist or were just dummies/decoys.
Great post and production! Never knew about this incident. It could have been a lot worse. RIP to the airman who perished.
A lot worse! 400 Danes later died of cancer!
Good video, I liked the graphics. The cut-away of the plane was best.
read "Command and Control" about all the near misses we had with nuclear accidents. one of my fav books.
I’m amazed that the compressor of the engine can get the air that hot. And that it stayed so hot all the way from the engine to the heater vent.
I'm amazed that pillows on fire couldn't be extinguished before the extinguishers ran out.
I was a little boy of 5 and a half years old, living with my parents in Dundas, a small Danish settlement just acoss North Star Bay from Thule Air Base.
I clearly remember that evening when this awful accident happened... We saw Hobo28 up there in the sunshine (it was during the dark season, so completely dark on the ground all day) but every evening we used to watch the B52's on patrol shining bright up there at 35000 ft.
Moments later the earth shattered and flames 3-400 ft up in the air were visible behind Thule mountain, the charactarisric flat top volcano like mountain, which our house was the closest to in Dundas.
RIP. The crewmember and all those who died much too early from cancer - including my own mother 😮💨
And Thank you for this very interesting video about what really happened inside the aircraft - we never got the details back then
Thanks for all your hard work in making these accurate and very interesting videos, RIP crew member.
" I don't know whats more disturbing, that we lost a nuclear missile, or that it happens so often we have a term for it" ---best quote from the movie Broken Arrow.
There was a crash in January 1961 of a B-52 in North Carolina. It had two armed nuclear bombs on board.
Well, nothing happened or many of us would not be here. Talking about incidental depopulation ; way faster than any bio-warfare. Accidental "friendly" nuclear discharge.....
@@linanicolia1363 Actually the one in Greensboro, NC didn't blow up because of a fluke - all of the safety devices failed but thankfully one of the detonator steps also failed, or else there would now be a big crater in that state today.
This is your best video yet, imho. Fantastic!
This wouldn't have happened if they used My Pillows.
So sad, I mean for Leonard, when you realized that there are only 6 ejections seats, and you don't have and you're the 7th person on board, oh so sick( I can't imagine, no one can't imagine his feelings at that time
I re-watched this playing When Johnny Comes Marching Home in the background.
We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when.
I worked at Thule Air Base, Greenland as a civilian for quite a long time. I knew some old timers that were actually there when this happened. They said they made a PA announcement for ppl to go just outside their building and look at that area. They said they figured to have more eyes on the event and thusly more witness accounts.
For the six survivors, that had to be the worst (and absolutely coldest) ejection ride in history. I wonder how long it took for them to be picked up from wherever they landed. I grew up next to a B-52 Wing (WPAFB, Ohio) and never even knew you could eject from one of these aircraft. Also, the most expensive seat cushions in history. This whole plan of circling that far north-any really any where else-is the most inefficient and crew tiring operation I’ve ever heard of. I can’t imagine the cost of the jet fuel alone for this time period. I’d really love to see the inside of one of aircraft.
I remember flying missions in a B-52 that lasted, as I remember, up to 18 hours. And that was flight time not counting the two hours prior and the 1 to 2 hours after for debriefing. On one such mission I dozed off and when I came to EVERYONE on the aircraft was asleep. THANK GOD for autopilots and flight paths where there are no other aircraft flying.
Happy New Year my man 😃✈
Next:2022
By the time the parts contract runs out in 2050, the plane will have been in service for almost 100 years
You can spend an hour and a half watching Christian Slater battle John Travolta after a B-3 crash or you can spend 13 minutes paying respect to the B-52 airmen who tragically died in this crash.
This is time much better spent. The movie was horrible, and even as a teenager who loved actions movies, I hated it.
@@dezznutz3743 so disappointed too when I saw that movie. It made me angry. Nice screen name btw.
@@dezznutz3743 Very true, but it DID have a couple of great lines of dialog in it - the best being this priceless and very much on-topic one;
"I don't know what's scarier, losing nuclear weapons, or that it happens so often there's actually a term for it.”
Maybe a video on this crash..
1972 B-52 Crash. . , At 11:20 a.m. on March 31, 1972, a 306th Bombardment Wing B-52D Stratofortress bomber stationed at nearby McCoy Air Force Base (now Orlando International Airport) crashed on this site.
yeah that would be awesome, hopefully he'll see this and do it!
When flying in the winter, it never ceases to amaze me how many military people from the South disregard the importance of wearing warm clothing in case of a snow storm! The Air Florida crash in Washington DC is a good example. They left the airport after being de-iced only one time! That was a very heavy, snowy day! Reagan Airport has a very short runway! That plane smashed into a bridge and landed in the Potomac River! I will never forget that day!
Wow! Excellent progress on your graphics quality! Video as history. Great! Thanks for doing this one.
Last video of 2021 and its amazing 👏
I started operation chrome dome in my 40's unfortunately. Mission complete!
Thank you for your service 🎖🪖
This is a story that never gets told. Thank you for sharing
So Svitenko did or didn't bail out? The end says "lost his life on board". If he did indeed bail out do we know why he died? Faulty parachute? Froze to death?
@@karen1nicola Yes, how exactly?
@@karen1nicola 1) Yes, maybe there would be a body. Remember how he left the plane BEFORE it crashed? Likely it would be near where the living crew were found. 2) How do you know what happened, unless you try to find out? Escape hatch problem? Defective parachute? Accident on the ground? Exposure? Important for the AF to know, regardless. I would hope they, at least, would want to know.
@@floraposteschild4184 Here is what I found: He bailed out at about 690 MPH, over double the safe speed to do so. "At some point during his exit into the slipstream, he struck his head on the hatch edge or the electronic countermeasures antennas on the bottom of the fuselage. When the rescue teams found him far north of the air base, part of the nylon of his unopened parachute pack was melted and fused. The fire also appeared to have melted parts of his boot soles. Most accounts report he was not conscious during the fall."
@@plmn93 So mostly the fire, but also some issues exiting the hatch. Thank you!
@@floraposteschild4184 the impact with the hatch / antennae probably killed or incapacitated him, but given that his chute had been damaged by the fire, there's a good chance it would not have opened (or opened fully) even had he been in any state to pull the rip cord. In which case, I think i'd have rather been unconscious before impact with the ice.
Your visual explanation diagrams are absolutely brilliant
I always watch your videos!👀 Your videos are realistic and good.✈👍
Cushions spontaneously combusted? What materials were they made of? Paper doesn't do that until 451 degrees Fahrenheit
Man needed them pillows so bad he rendered an entire area inhabitable
*Uninhabitable
RIP :( Thanks for your Service 🇺🇸
Another great video of yours! Thanks and all the best for 2022!
That's really brutal...
God bless the ultimate sacrifice all great soldiers give, when their life becomes legend, and honored. Thank you all so much for your service. I should have noted before, A family member was a master Air Force Captian, Alaska Air Defense Command, 32 yrs. Can't tell me a damn thing. God bless them because they watched over us and insured our peace, and sacrifice they did, at war or not, Damn good men. And NEVER FORGET, those who gave all.
I absolutely love your channel. I’m obsessed with passenger jets especially.
Anyway I wanted to say that I would have more time to watch your videos if you had a voice-over, even a computerized voice if you don’t wanna use your own.
I chase a 2 yr old around ALL DAY (well til he goes to bed and I can finally play my simulator haha) but I know I’m not the only one who wishes some of these were read aloud.
Also just wanted to say your research is SO in depth! You have found diagrams and pictures of incidents I know about well yet have never seen myself. Your channel is definitely in my top ten and I’m gonna make sure I’m subscribed. Thank you for your content!
1959 Boeing B-52G Stratofortress *58-0188* (USAF)
---
21 January 1968
It's truly amazing that a dreadfull accident hasn't occured.
Uhhh, no. The planes flew to Fail Safe points, that changed all the time so that the Soviets would not figure out where they were. They orbited the Fail Safe points for quite a while, and then flew back. It was nothing to do with maintaining visual surveillance of the BWES. Wikipedia, amonst many others, has a good account of this.
Cool effects and a good new year everybody
Why do I watch these vids when I know I'm going to be on a plane soon
You're masoquist
@@KeanuReevesDaShopee I'm definitely not masochist I think I watch because from all these accidents there have been lessons learnt from them all and therefore it is now more safer to fly than ever and I think the vids are Interesting and incitful to watch
I watch because they're extremely educational (aviation, engineering, geography, history) and also because they speak volumes about humanity and civilization---courage, determination, intelligence, common sense, and, of course, most important of all, the sanctity of life.
hopefully not a military plane armed with nuclear weapons!
Broken Arrow. You also had Bent Spear and Dull Sword designations for nuclear incidents. I remember both from my time in SAC as a security policeman way back when.
How crazy is it that the bomber tasked with nuking Russia had a captain named "Marx." And the copilot has a super Russian sounding name too. Trippy
Svitenko sounds more Ukrainian than Russian. I suppose both were part of the USSR at the time, but prior to that they were (and are again) separate countries with distinct languages and cultures.
There is a large Russian population in the US, in the movie The Deer Hunter every American has a Russian name because their town was founded by Russian migrants.
@@krashd Did not know that -but I always wondered what the relationships were - thanks
A B-52 crashed in the mountains of Western Maryland during a terrible snowstorm in the 1960's. It also had nuclear bombs on board! The story is told in the book B-52 Down! Fortunately, there wasn't an explosion ! Three of the 4 men did perish. Two parachuted but the extreme weather killed them! Very bitter cold. I don't think they had proper winter clothing! The people of the town secured the accident site and assisted the military in blinding snow! The town has a monument for those who died!
I suppose Capt. Svitenko was left with the hardest option , that of trying to escape by jumping out of a hatch door on the lower deck , not the easiest thing to do.
On earlier versions of this aircraft the tail gunner had no ejection seat and sat in the tail. His egress was to blow the guns and follow them out. For egress on the ground, blow guns and let yourself down 14'-15' with the provided rope. I need not tell you he was the only enlisted crewman on a B-52 do I?
I was in the 8th AF 68th Bomb Wing out of Seymour Johnson AFB IN Goldsboro N C
Our Wing had the distinction of having 2 Broken Arrows!!
The first was only 13 miles from Goldsboro- I think the tail number was 59164. City of Goldsboro .
The bomber was coming back from its 24 hour Chrome Dome mission in the early 1960’s; while topping off its fuel from a KC135 over the Atlantic the boom operator noticed fuel running off a wing of the aircraft. A wing finally broke off just a few minutes before landing and down it came.
The AC jettisoned the 2 hydrogen bombs. They were so low to the ground only one had its parachute fully open and the other went down with the aircraft-it was never recovered ! !
The bomb with a parachute had 4 of their 5 firing HE explosive triggers were triggered!
One more jolt or wrong move and that part of North Carolina would be turned to glass!!!
I know this is true because my neighbor was Tech Sgt Fincher : 53rd Munitions Maintenance Squadron & he helped disarm the weapon!!!
You should read some of the comms above yours - looks like you were all involved in the same scenario - respect
Broken Arrow..that was the name of a movie with John Travolta
A terrible one unfortunately
There are smartest people in the world onboard of that plane. I don’t believe they couldn’t figure out smth like that.
Those stories have lots to it but life is much more complicated that TH-cam.
My sister was stationed at Thule in the mid 80s. She was a "scope dope".
Another professional video, thank you.
Absolutely love the content you provide. Great channel 😁👍♥️
I dont buy this story at all. The heat through the vents was hot enough to ignite seat cushions at a distance but no one noticed how hot the air was? Seats ignited but not their clothes or any other articles? And two fire extinguishers couldnt put the fire out??? This sounds like a weak cover story for something else.
A comment from about suggested it was a cigarette butt that was by the cushions. In those days people smoked everywhere.
If the air was coming directly from the engine, due to a AC malfunction, it would be about 60 PSI, and well over 300 degrees. They did mention, the interior was getting extremely hot prior to the incident. Add in some foam pillows, and a major fire hazard would exist.
I am a retired Air Force Crew Chief.
Very good report well researched. 👍
Happy new year all of you.
Happy new year
Oh boi… this incident was introduced in my history books and it was familiar.
While on the subject of Broken Arrows, The Palomares B52 is intreasting also.
So, three crappy cushions ended up ALMOST (
there was no nuclear explosion
@@THRASHMETALFUNRIFFS Yikes, you are right, I typed too fast. Fixed it now, thanks!
@@rgarlinyc HE who admits their error, never errors... /w\TMFR/w\
@@THRASHMETALFUNRIFFS Thank you!
Like Eisenhower said we must put the brakes on the military industrial complex