[CPEO-MEF] RADIATION, GLOBAL: "How a B-52 Crash in Greenland Became One of the Cold War's Worst Nuclear Accidents "

[Lenny Siegel <Lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

How a B-52 Crash in Greenland Became One of the Cold War's Worst Nuclear Accidents

By  Allen Frazier
Military.com
January 20, 2026

Six hours into a routine patrol mission over the Arctic, smoke began filling the cockpit of a B-52 Stratofortress carrying four hydrogen bombs. Captain John Haug and his crew fought to reach Thule Air Base in Greenland, but the fire consumed the bomber's electrical systems.

At 3:39 p.m. on January 21, 1968, the aircraft slammed into the ice seven miles west of the base. The impact carved a 160-foot gash across the frozen bay. All four thermonuclear weapons detonated their conventional high explosives. Nuclear safety mechanisms prevented atomic fission, but the blasts scattered radioactive plutonium across miles of Arctic ice. One crew member died. And investigators would discover they could account for only three of the four weapons.

…

For the entire article, see
https://www.military.com/daily-news/investigations-and-features/2026/01/16/how-b-52-crash-greenland-1968-became-one-of-cold-wars-worst-nuclear-accidents.html

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)




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