nuclear-news

How Many Nuclear Bombs Has The US Air Force Lost?

 https://simpleflying.com/nuclear-bombs-us-air-force-lost/ 3 Aug 24 [excellent tables on original]

Summary

• 3 US nuclear bombs lost, never found
• Possible unknown lost nuclear bombs worldwide
• The Soviets lost nuclear torpedoes and missiles

According to a 2022 BBC article, the United States has lost at least three nuclear bombs that have never been found – they are out there somewhere, and the military has given up looking for them. In total, there have been at least 32 so-called US Force ‘broken arrow’ accidents since 1950. The United States is not just one of the foremost nuclear powers; it operates the unique Boeing E-4B Nightwatch (aka Doomsday) planes to serve as emergency flying command centers for the President and Joint Chiefs in case Washington comes under nuclear attack.

32 Broken Arrow accidents

These broken arrow incidents occur when an aircraft has jettisoned a nuclear bomb in an emergency or by mistake, or the aircraft carrying them crashes. A bad time for nukes was at the height of the Cold War between 1960 and 1968 when Operation Chrome Dome kept nuclear-armed airplanes in the air at all times.

“But three US bombs have gone missing altogether – they’re still out there to this day, lurking in swamps, fields and oceans across the planet.” – BBC

In January 1966, a B-52G bomber carrying four B28 thermonuclear bombs collided midair with a KC-135 tanker over Palomares, Spain. The three bombs that fell on the land were swiftly recovered, but one fell into the Mediterranean Sea. However, this 1.1-megaton warhead bomb was eventually retrieved by a robotic submersible. However, the Air Force was not always so fortunate, and bombs were not always found.

Sometimes, it is only by sheer luck that nuclear bombs haven’t exploded in accidents. In 1961, a B-52 broke up over Goldsboro, North Carolina, and dropped two nuclear bombs. While one was largely undamaged, investigations found that three of the four safeguards on the other bomb had failed.

Incidentally, the B-52H bomber remains one of the three strategic nuclear bombers of the US Air Force, and Congress wants to restore more of them to carry nukes again

The three American nuclear bombs lost

Tybee Island mid-air collision

On February 5, 1958, an F-86 fighter plane collided with a B-47 bomber carrying a 7,600-pound Mark 15 nuclear bomb. The bomb was then jettisoned to help prevent the B-47 from crashing and the bomb exploding. The bomb fell around Tybee Island near Savannah, Georgia. After a number of unsuccessful searches, the bomb was eventually declared lost in Wassaw Sound, and to everyone’s understanding, it remains there to this day.

Philippine Sea A-4 crash

In 1965, a US Navy Douglas A-4E Skyhawk attack aircraft was armed with a nuclear weapon when it fell off the Essex-class aircraft carrier, the USS Ticonderoga. This occurred around 68 miles from Japan’s Kikai Island near Okinawa. The aircraft, pilot, and the B43 thermonuclear bomb were never recovered (despite 10 weeks of searching) and remain in the ocean depths today. The pilot was Lieutenant Douglas M. Webster and the ocean depth is around 16,000 feet.

Thule Air Base crash

The third known nuclear loss came in January 1968 when a US B-52 bomber carrying four B28FI thermonuclear bombs crashed. A cabin fire forced the aircraft’s crew to abandon it before they could make an emergency landing at the Thule Air Base. Six of the seven crew ejected safely, while the seventh perished while attempting to bail out.

Pilotless, the zombie bomber crashed into sea ice in North Star Bar, Greenland; the crash triggered a conventional explosion that caused the nuclear payload to rupture and disperse (the area was left radioactively contaminated). After extensive Danish-American clean-up efforts, one secondary stage of one of the warheads was never found.

Unknown nukes lost from other powers

If it is unsettling to know there are three known American nuclear bombs out there, take a pause to think the ones known to the public are all American. The British, French, Pakistanis, Indian, Chinese, and likely the North Koreans and Israelis all have nuclear weapons – these countries could have lost nuclear bombs and never disclosed them.

But most terrifying were the Soviets and, later, the Russians. The Soviets and Russians have had many nuclear accidents, from the Chornobyl nuclear power plant disaster to the early K-9 number submarine meltdown to the later Kursk explosion. All that’s known of lost Soviet/Russian nukes are the ones lost on at least three submarines (the K-8. K-129, and K-278).

No one knows how many nukes were lost on Soviet aircraft (but it’s more likely a question of how many and not if they lost any). The Soviet Union amassed the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, reaching a mind-boggling 45,000 in 1986

April 9, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Reference, safety