Lost H-Bomb
7 APRIL 1966
LOST H-BOMB
Considering the pace of Cold War activities in the 1960s, accidents were bound to happen. Such was the case on 17 January 1966 when an Air Force B-52 collided with a KC-135 tanker during an aerial refueling operation 30,500 feet over Spain. Eight airmen were killed, and four unarmed B28 thermonuclear hydrogen bombs plummeted from the bomber’s bay. Three came to rest on land and were recovered. The fourth plunged into the sea off Costa del Sol near Palomares, Spain. Fear of nuclear annihilation immediately gripped the European community, fueled by Communist propaganda. Extremists exploited the event, predicting an accidental rain of nuclear weapons from “friendly” skies. In the face of public animosity, and as the Soviets were sure to mount their own attempt to recover the submerged bomb, the US Navy was called.
The 14-ship, 2500-man Task Force 65, including USNS MIZAR (T-AGOR-11) and the deep submersibles DEEP JEEP, CUBMARINE, ALUMINAUT, and the capable research sub, ALVIN, was on-scene by 17 February. RADM William S. Guest commanded the operation, though incredibly, he was not permitted to show pictures of the bomb to his submersible crews! A local fisherman, Francisco Simo-Orts, pinpointed the spot he had seen a large splash, an area that was divided into two zones, Alfa I and Alfa II. The shallower Alfa II area was searched by divers and yielded much crash debris. The submersibles worked the deeper, more rugged Alfa I, thought to be the more likely area for success.
On March 1st, after weeks of frustration and after repeated requests to search beyond the Alfa II area for a slide track, ALVIN’s crewmen Valentine Wilson and Marvin McCamas (intentionally) wandered off course. As they had predicted, along the edge of the Alfa II area they quickly located a furrow in the muddy slope made by the sinking bomb. Fourteen days later the weapon itself was located at 2550 feet, draped in its parachute and resting at the edge of a 500-foot gorge. Recovery from beyond the steep walls of that gorge would have been impossible. However, after several accidental nudges by ALVIN’s dexterous arm,a line was secured to the errant weapon. With ALUMINAUT assisting, the device was dragged toward the surface–until the line parted! Happily, the bomb settled onto an underwater plateau 300 feet deeper than its original location. The Cable-controlled Underwater Research Vehicle (CURV) was next employed, but she became hopelessly entangled in the parachute lines. Not until this day was the ensnared CURV, with the H-bomb bundled therewith, hoisted aboard PETREL (ASR-14). It was transferred to CASCADE (AD-16) for the trip home.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 12 APR 24
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
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Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 5 “N-Q”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1979, p. 277.
Middleton, Drew. Submarine: The Ultimate Naval Weapon–Its Past, Present & Future. Chicago, IL: Playboy Press, 1976, pp. 162-63.
Pierson, David S. “Lost in the Sky, Found in the Sea.” Naval History, Vol 23 (3), June 2009, pp. 50-54.
Polmar, Norman, et.al. Chronology of the Cold War at Sea 1945-1991. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1998, p. 104.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: In terms of US Navy salvage operations, this endeavor was larger than the 1963 search for the lost submarine THRESHER (SSN-593) and was the first that successfully combined divers, submersibles, and remotely operated vehicles.
Though retarded in their fall by safety parachutes, one of the H-bombs that struck land suffered a cracked casing. Radioactive material leaked, and the Air Force was forced to undertake a large clean-up and removal of thousands of cubic yards of contaminated Spanish earth.
