Hi
开云体育I still shudder from watching that Chernobyl series; self sacrifice was the expected thing.Best Susan On 30 Mar 2021, at 14:59, John Miller via <johnmiller051118@...> wrote: Trust me Chris I saw it in a documentary. There are some extraordinarily brave & good people & their are some who are outright evil. Remember the fireman at Kings Cross who ran down to save another person & was burnt to death? He probably knew the odds were 100 to1 against, but he went anyway. That was his job. The Chernobyl workers who went into deadly radiation zones I will endeavour to find the information I am not at my best at the moment Regards john |
|
Well, not a lot of people know but there have been other accidents/near misses. This was at Windscale. The problem was solved politically?by changing it's name to Sellafield. Without the "Cockcrofts folly" filters it would have been at least as bad as Chernobyl.? Even with these filters they had to dump a whole lot of cows milk There was the 3 mile island disaster, which must have been very good promotion for the film the China syndrome which came out a few months later. A few other events in Russia. A criticality accident in Japan which killed one worker & severely injured another, because they put too much Plutonium together, against the rules, & of course there has been Fukushima. I was inclined (at a younger age) to think Nuclear power was a good thing. I'm not a proponent of it now. Oh & an American bomber crashed at Lakenheath & 2 hydrogen bombs were lost in North Carolina
Remembering the night two atomic bombs fell—on North Carolina Sixty years ago, at the height of the Cold War, a B-52 bomber disintegrated over a small Southern town. An eyewitness recalls what happened next. PHOTOGRAPH BY BETTMANN ARCHIVE, GETTY READ CAPTION Firefighters hose down the smoking wreckage of a B-52 Stratofortress near Faro, North Carolina, in the early morning hours of January 24, 1961. The plane released two atomic bombs when it fell apart in midair. PHOTOGRAPH BY BETTMANN ARCHIVE, GETTY 8 MINUTE READ BY BILL NEWCOTT PUBLISHED JANUARY 22, 2021 BILLY REEVES REMEMBERS that night in January 1961 as unseasonably warm, even for North Carolina. But it got a lot hotter just before midnight, when the walls of his room began glowing red with a strange light streaming through his window. "I was just getting ready for bed," Reeves says, "and all of a sudden I’m thinking, 'What in the world…?'" The 17-year-old ran out to the porch of his family’s farm house just in time to see a flaming B-52 bomber—one wing missing, fiery debris rocketing off in all directions—plunge from the sky and plow into a field barely a quarter-mile away. “Everything around here was on fire,” says Reeves, now 78, standing with me in the middle of that same field, our backs to the modest house where he grew up. “The grass was burning. Big Daddy’s Road over there was melting. My mother was praying. She thought it was the End of Times.” Like any self-respecting teenager, Reeves began running straight toward the wreckage—until it exploded. “Then I ran the other way,” he says. 罢翱顿础驰’厂 POPULAR STORIES America’s first ‘virtual’ inauguration ushers in a transformed era Greener air travel will depend on these emerging technologies Dire wolves were real—and even stranger than we thought Within an hour, in the early morning of January 24, a military helicopter was hovering overhead. Above the whomp-whomp of the blades, an amplified voice kept repeating the same word: “Evacuate!” “We didn’t know why,” Reeves recalls. “We didn’t ask why. We just got out of there.” What the voice in the chopper knew, but Reeves didn’t, was that besides the wreckage of the ill-fated B-52, somewhere out there in the winter darkness lay what the military referred to as “broken arrows”—the remains of two 3.8-megaton thermonuclear atomic bombs. Each contained more firepower than the combined destructive force of every explosion caused by humans from the beginning of time to the end of World War II. A wing and a prayer If there were such a thing as a friendly neighborhood military base, it would be near sleepy Goldsboro, North Carolina. Largely hidden behind woods, walls, and wetlands, the base has been an unobtrusive jobs-and-money community asset since World War II. Despite a notable increase in air traffic in late 1960, the good people of Goldsboro had no inkling that their local Air Force base had quietly become one of several U.S. airfields selected for Operation Chrome Dome, a doomsday program that kept multiple B-52 bombers in the air throughout the Northern Hemisphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Each plane carried two atomic bombs. () ? NGP, Content may not reflect . Bombers flying from Johnson AFB in January 1961 would typically make a few training loops just off the coast of North Carolina, then head across the Atlantic all the way to the Azores before doubling back. The gas-guzzling B-52s, called BUFFs by airmen (for Big Ugly Fat Fellow, only they didn’t say “fellow”) had to be refueled multiple times during each mission. It was following one of these refueling sessions that Captain Walter Tulloch and his crew noticed their plane was rapidly losing fuel. Then they began having electrical problems. Tulloch briefly resisted an order from Air Control to return to Goldsboro, preferring to burn off some fuel before coming in for a risky landing. But soon he followed orders and headed back. At about 5,000 feet altitude, approaching from the south and about 15 miles from the base, Tulloch made a final turn. That’s when the B-52 fell apart. As part of the Cold War-era Operation Chrome Dome, U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers flew globe-spanning missions day and night out of several U.S. airfields, including Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, North Carolina. PHOTOGRAPH BY DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY “Tulloch had the B-52 lined up to land on Runway 26, but suddenly the plane started veering off to the right, toward the hamlet of Faro,” says Joel Dobson, author of the definitive book on the crash, . “Then it started rolling over and tearing apart.” A few weeks before, the Air Force and the plane’s builder, Boeing, had realized that a recent modification—fitting the B-52’s wings with fuel bladders—could cause the wings to tear off. Tulloch’s plane was scheduled for a re-fit to resolve the problem, but it would come too late. He knew his plane was doomed, so he hit the “bail out” alarm. Of the eight airmen aboard the B-52, six sat in ejection seats. Adam Mattocks, the third pilot, was assigned a regular jump seat in the cockpit. The youngest man on board, 27-year-old Mattocks was also an Air Force rarity: an African-American jet fighter pilot, reassigned to B-52 duty as Operation Chrome Dome got into full swing. At this moment, it looked like that chance assignment would be his death warrant. “Basically, Mattocks was a dead man,” Dobson says. His only chance was to somehow pull himself through a cockpit window after the other two pilots had ejected. “He was a very religious man,” Dobson says. “He told me he just looked around and said, ‘Well, God, if it’s my time, so be it. But here goes.’” The B-52 crash was front-page news in Goldsboro and around the country… Read More PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF WAYNE COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY It was a surreal moment. The B-52’s forward speed was nearly zero, but the plane had not yet started falling. It was as if Mattocks and the plane were, for a moment, suspended in midair. He seized on that moment to hurl himself into the abyss, leaping as far from the B-52 as he could. He pulled his parachute ripcord. At first it didn’t deploy, perhaps because his air speed was so low. But as he began falling in earnest, the welcome sight of an air-filled canopy billowed in the night sky above him. “Mattocks prayed, ‘Thank you, God!’” says Dobson. “Then the plane exploded in midair and collapsed his chute.” Now Mattocks was just another piece of falling debris from the disintegrating B-52. Somehow, a stream of air slipped into the fluttering chute and it re-inflated. Mattocks was once more floating toward Earth. Looking up at that gently bobbing chute, Mattocks again whispered, “Thank you, God!” Then he looked down. He was heading straight for the burning wreckage of the B-52. “Well, Lord,” he said out loud, “if this is the way it’s going to end, so be it.” Then a gust of wind, or perhaps an updraft from the flames below, nudged him to the south. He landed, unhurt, away from the main crash site. After one last murmur of thanks, Mattocks headed for a nearby farmhouse and hitched a ride back to the Air Force base. Standing at the front gate in a tattered flight suit, still holding his bundled parachute in his arms, Mattocks told the guards he had just bailed from a crashing B-52. Faced with a disheveled African-American man cradling a parachute and telling a cockamamie story like that, the sentries did exactly what you might expect a pair of guards in 1961 rural North Carolina to do: They arrested Mattocks for stealing a parachute. A bomb too far I am bouncing along the backroads of Faro, North Carolina, in Billy Reeves’ pickup truck. He pulls over near a line of trees perpendicular to Shackleford Road. Slowed by its parachute, one of the bombs came to rest in a stand of trees… Read More PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY U.S. AIR FORCE “That’s where they found the intact bomb,” he tells me. “Its parachute opened, so it just floated down here and was hanging from those trees. The tip was barely dug into the ground.” A little farther, a few more turns, and his voice turns somber. “Right up there,” he says, nodding toward a canopy of trees hanging over the road, his voice catching a bit. “That’s where they found the dead man hanging from his parachute in the morning. So sad.” Of the eight airmen aboard the B-52, five ejected—one of whom didn't survive the landing—one failed to eject, and another, in a jump seat similar to Mattocks, died in the crash. To this day, Adam Columbus Mattocks—who died in 2018—remains the only aviator to bail out of a B-52 cockpit without an ejector seat and survive. All around the crash site, Reeves says, local residents continue to find fragments of the plane. There are tales of people still concealing pieces of landing gear and fuselage. Shortly after the crash, Reeves found an entire wooden box of bullets. “They took the box,” he says. “Wouldn’t even let me keep one bullet.” But by far the most significant remnant of that calamitous January night still lies 180 feet or so beneath that cotton field. Although the first bomb floated harmlessly to the ground under its parachute, the second came to a more disastrous end: It plowed into the earth at nearly the speed of sound, sending thousands of pieces burrowing into the ground for hundreds of feet around. The basketball-sized nuclear bomb device was quickly recovered—miraculously intact, its nuclear core uncompromised. The U.S. Government soon announced its safe return and loudly reassured the public that, thanks to the device’s multiple safety systems, the bomb had never come close to exploding. (Related: ) Despite decades of alarmist theories to the contrary, that assessment was probably correct. Like a bungee cord calculated to yank a jumper back mere inches from hitting the ground, the system intervened just in time to prevent a nuclear nightmare. Ironically, it appears that the bomb that drifted gently to earth posed the bigger risk, since its detonating mechanism remained intact. Robert McNamara, who’d been Secretary of Defense at the time of the incident, told reporters in 1983, "The bomb’s arming mechanism had six or seven steps to go through to detonate, and it went through all but one.” “The bottom line for me is the safety mechanisms worked,” says Roy “Doc” Heidicker, the recently retired historian for the Fourth Fighter Wing, which flies out of Johnson Air Force Base. “On the other hand, I know of at least one medical doctor who was considering moving to Goldsboro for a position, but was concerned that it might not be safe because of the Goldsboro broken arrow. So there’s this continuing sense people have: ‘You nearly blew us all up, and you’re not telling us the truth about it.’” But the story of America’s nuclear near-miss isn’t really over, even now. That’s because, even though the government recovered the primary nuclear device, attempts to recover other radioactive remnants of the bomb failed. The main portion of the B-52 plowed into this cotton field, where remnants of one of its two bombs are still buried. PHOTOGRAPH BY BILL NEWCOTT If I were to hold a Geiger counter to the ground of the cotton field in which Billy Reeves and I are standing, chances are it would register nothing unusual. Dirt is a remarkably efficient radiation absorber. But about 180 feet below our shoes, gently radiating away with a half-life of 24,000 years, lies the plutonium core of the bomb’s secondary stage. The bombs in the B-52 weren’t mere Hiroshima-class atomic weapons. They were Mark-39 hydrogen thermonuclear bombs. Each contained not only a conventional spherical atom bomb at its tip, but also a 13-pound rod of plutonium inside a 300-pound compartment filled with the hydrogen isotope lithium-6 deuteride. If you think of the Mark-39 as a pipe bomb, the heat thrown off by the secondary device is the nails and shrapnel that make the initial explosion exponentially more dangerous. Reeves remembers the fleet of massive excavation equipment that was employed as the government tried to dig up the hydrogen core. But the area’s water table was high, and the hole kept filling in. Eventually, the feds gave up. They filled in the hole, drew a 400-foot-radius circle around the epicenter of the impact, and purchased the land inside the circle. The plot is still farmed to this day. Workers just have to refrain from digging more than five feet down. Skimming the tree line beyond the far end of the cotton field, a military plane is coming in on final approach to Johnson Air Force Base. Reeves lives under that flight pattern, and every day brings a memory of that chaotic night in 1961. “When the planes come in, and the windows begin to rattle, I still get the chills,” he says. We trudge across the field toward Big Daddy’s Road, where our vehicles are parked. “Actually, we’ve been really lucky,” he says. “Other than that one, there’s never been another military crash around here.” The muddy ground sucks at our shoes. "Course," he adds, "the one accident we did have dropped a couple of atom bombs on us…" SHARE TWEET COPY READ THIS NEXT The elusive horror of Hiroshima It's hard to fathom the nuclear holocaust that laid waste to this now vibrant city 75 years ago. Twists of fate made Nagasaki a target 75 years ago Did the U.S. plan to drop more than two atomic bombs on Japan? How the advent of nuclear weapons changed the course of history LATEST IN HISTORY & CULTURE Remembering the night two atomic bombs fell—on North Carolina READ READ Our democracy is wounded. How will we heal it? READ READ 200,000 miles of Roman roads provided the framework for empire READ READ America’s first ‘virtual’ inauguration ushers in a transformed era READ READ A brief history of the inaugural ceremonies that set our traditions—and… READ READ LOAD MORE LOAD MORE LATEST MAGAZINE ISSUES LATEST IN TRAVEL Should a haven for grizzlies be off limits to hikers? READ READ PARTNER CONTENT From silverbacks to sips of tea: The ultimate 10-day Rwandan adventure READ READ Whales, myths, and Arctic lakes: Explore Iceland’s new road trip READ READ New Orleans’ historic architecture is uniquely suited to pandemic living READ READ Go inside the close-knit world of Native American rodeo READ READ LOAD MORE LOAD MORE LATEST IN SCIENCE U.S. plans to join WHO initiative to distribute vaccine equitably READ READ COVID-19 will likely be with us forever. Here's how we'll live with it. READ READ Giant predatory worms lurked beneath the ancient seafloor, fossils reveal READ READ How good is COVID-19 testing in the U.S. right now? READ READ We need better face masks—and origami might help READ READ LOAD MORE LOAD MORE POPULAR PHOTO STORIES LATEST IN ENVIRONMENT Has the electric car’s moment arrived at last? READ READ These 6 numbers define the climate challenge in a changing U.S. READ READ Sacred Native American land to be traded to a foreign mining giant READ READ Biden expected to reverse Trump’s order to shrink Utah national monuments READ READ See how volcanoes spark lightning storms READ READ LOAD MORE LOAD MORE LATEST IN ANIMALS We haven’t seen a quarter of known bee species since the 1990s READ READ How these fish—'tiny tanks of the Amazon'—survive piranha bites READ READ Spotted and oddly striped zebras may be a warning for species’ future READ READ Outgoing administration’s last-minute changes to wildlife protections draw… READ READ Enormous pigeon-eating catfish wreaking havoc on Europe’s ecosystems READ READ LOAD MORE LOAD MORE MAMMALS JANUARY 23, 2021 MONKEYING AROUND PHOTOGRAPH BY TIM LAMAN, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION ABOUT US OUR SITES JOIN US FOLLOW US Copyright ? 1996-2015 National Geographic Society|Copyright ? 2015-2021 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reserved America’s first ‘virtual’ inauguration ushers in a transformed era Greener air travel will depend on these emerging technologies Dire wolves were real—and even stranger than we thought The elusive horror of Hiroshima It's hard to fathom the nuclear holocaust that laid waste to this now vibrant city 75 years ago. Twists of fate made Nagasaki a target 75 years ago The Japanese port was not the U.S.'s. first choice for a nuclear attack in August 1945, but shifting circumstances and last-minute choices doomed the city. Did the U.S. plan to drop more than two atomic bombs on Japan? Seventy-five years ago in summer 1945, the United States' plans for unleashing its atomic bombs went beyond Hiroshima and Nagasaki. How the advent of nuclear weapons changed the course of history Many scientists came to regret their role in creating a weapon that can obliterate anyone and anything in its vicinity in seconds. Remembering the night two atomic bombs fell—on North Carolina Our democracy is wounded. How will we heal it? 200,000 miles of Roman roads provided the framework for empire America’s first ‘virtual’ inauguration ushers in a transformed era A brief history of the inaugural ceremonies that set our traditions—and… Should a haven for grizzlies be off limits to hikers? Partner Content From silverbacks to sips of tea: The ultimate 10-day Rwandan adventure Whales, myths, and Arctic lakes: Explore Iceland’s new road trip New Orleans’ historic architecture is uniquely suited to pandemic living Go inside the close-knit world of Native American rodeo U.S. plans to join WHO initiative to distribute vaccine equitably COVID-19 will likely be with us forever. Here's how we'll live with it. Giant predatory worms lurked beneath the ancient seafloor, fossils reveal How good is COVID-19 testing in the U.S. right now? We need better face masks—and origami might help This Man Endured Bee Stings and a Death-Defying Climb to Photograph Last Honey Hunter Going to Great Depths to Illuminate Hidden Underwater Worlds 51 Spectacular Photos of Our World Life Inside Hong Kong’s ‘Coffin Cubicles’ Rare Look Inside North Korea's Massive Military Has the electric car’s moment arrived at last? These 6 numbers define the climate challenge in a changing U.S. Sacred Native American land to be traded to a foreign mining giant Biden expected to reverse Trump’s order to shrink Utah national monuments See how volcanoes spark lightning storms We haven’t seen a quarter of known bee species since the 1990s How these fish—'tiny tanks of the Amazon'—survive piranha bites Spotted and oddly striped zebras may be a warning for species’ future Outgoing administration’s last-minute changes to wildlife protections draw… Enormous pigeon-eating catfish wreaking havoc on Europe’s ecosystems A tiger's roar can be heard as far as two miles away. Elephants are the largest land animals. Wolves can go for more than a week without eating. Under their white fur, polar bears have black skin. A fox can use its tail to communicate with other foxes. Koalas often return to trees they consider their territory. A giraffe's heart weighs about 25 pounds. A typical panda eats half the day. Cheetahs are the only big cats that can’t roar. We use our own and third-party cookies to improve our services, personalize your advertising and remember your preferences. If you continue browsing or click on the accept button on this banner, we understand that you accept the use of cookies on our website. For more information visit our ACCEPT John
On Wednesday, 31 March 2021, 10:19:15 BST, Purler <susan.platter@...> wrote:
I still shudder from watching that Chernobyl series; self sacrifice was the expected thing. Best Susan On 30 Mar 2021, at 14:59, John Miller via <johnmiller051118@...> wrote: Trust me Chris I saw it in a documentary. There are some extraordinarily brave & good people & their are some who are outright evil. Remember the fireman at Kings Cross who ran down to save another person & was burnt to death? He probably knew the odds were 100 to1 against, but he went anyway. That was his job. The Chernobyl workers who went into deadly radiation zones I will endeavour to find the information I am not at my best at the moment Regards john |
|
Oh & some other "broken arrow" events:
On Wednesday, 31 March 2021, 11:37:20 BST, John Miller via groups.io <johnmiller051118@...> wrote:
Well, not a lot of people know but there have been other accidents/near misses. This was at Windscale. The problem was solved politically?by changing it's name to Sellafield. Without the "Cockcrofts folly" filters it would have been at least as bad as Chernobyl.? Even with these filters they had to dump a whole lot of cows milk There was the 3 mile island disaster, which must have been very good promotion for the film the China syndrome which came out a few months later. A few other events in Russia. A criticality accident in Japan which killed one worker & severely injured another, because they put too much Plutonium together, against the rules, & of course there has been Fukushima. I was inclined (at a younger age) to think Nuclear power was a good thing. I'm not a proponent of it now. Oh & an American bomber crashed at Lakenheath & 2 hydrogen bombs were lost in North Carolina
Remembering the night two atomic bombs fell—on North Carolina Sixty years ago, at the height of the Cold War, a B-52 bomber disintegrated over a small Southern town. An eyewitness recalls what happened next. PHOTOGRAPH BY BETTMANN ARCHIVE, GETTY READ CAPTION Firefighters hose down the smoking wreckage of a B-52 Stratofortress near Faro, North Carolina, in the early morning hours of January 24, 1961. The plane released two atomic bombs when it fell apart in midair. PHOTOGRAPH BY BETTMANN ARCHIVE, GETTY 8 MINUTE READ BY BILL NEWCOTT PUBLISHED JANUARY 22, 2021 BILLY REEVES REMEMBERS that night in January 1961 as unseasonably warm, even for North Carolina. But it got a lot hotter just before midnight, when the walls of his room began glowing red with a strange light streaming through his window. "I was just getting ready for bed," Reeves says, "and all of a sudden I’m thinking, 'What in the world…?'" The 17-year-old ran out to the porch of his family’s farm house just in time to see a flaming B-52 bomber—one wing missing, fiery debris rocketing off in all directions—plunge from the sky and plow into a field barely a quarter-mile away. “Everything around here was on fire,” says Reeves, now 78, standing with me in the middle of that same field, our backs to the modest house where he grew up. “The grass was burning. Big Daddy’s Road over there was melting. My mother was praying. She thought it was the End of Times.” Like any self-respecting teenager, Reeves began running straight toward the wreckage—until it exploded. “Then I ran the other way,” he says. 罢翱顿础驰’厂 POPULAR STORIES America’s first ‘virtual’ inauguration ushers in a transformed era Greener air travel will depend on these emerging technologies Dire wolves were real—and even stranger than we thought Within an hour, in the early morning of January 24, a military helicopter was hovering overhead. Above the whomp-whomp of the blades, an amplified voice kept repeating the same word: “Evacuate!” “We didn’t know why,” Reeves recalls. “We didn’t ask why. We just got out of there.” What the voice in the chopper knew, but Reeves didn’t, was that besides the wreckage of the ill-fated B-52, somewhere out there in the winter darkness lay what the military referred to as “broken arrows”—the remains of two 3.8-megaton thermonuclear atomic bombs. Each contained more firepower than the combined destructive force of every explosion caused by humans from the beginning of time to the end of World War II. A wing and a prayer If there were such a thing as a friendly neighborhood military base, it would be near sleepy Goldsboro, North Carolina. Largely hidden behind woods, walls, and wetlands, the base has been an unobtrusive jobs-and-money community asset since World War II. Despite a notable increase in air traffic in late 1960, the good people of Goldsboro had no inkling that their local Air Force base had quietly become one of several U.S. airfields selected for Operation Chrome Dome, a doomsday program that kept multiple B-52 bombers in the air throughout the Northern Hemisphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Each plane carried two atomic bombs. () ? NGP, Content may not reflect . Bombers flying from Johnson AFB in January 1961 would typically make a few training loops just off the coast of North Carolina, then head across the Atlantic all the way to the Azores before doubling back. The gas-guzzling B-52s, called BUFFs by airmen (for Big Ugly Fat Fellow, only they didn’t say “fellow”) had to be refueled multiple times during each mission. It was following one of these refueling sessions that Captain Walter Tulloch and his crew noticed their plane was rapidly losing fuel. Then they began having electrical problems. Tulloch briefly resisted an order from Air Control to return to Goldsboro, preferring to burn off some fuel before coming in for a risky landing. But soon he followed orders and headed back. At about 5,000 feet altitude, approaching from the south and about 15 miles from the base, Tulloch made a final turn. That’s when the B-52 fell apart. As part of the Cold War-era Operation Chrome Dome, U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers flew globe-spanning missions day and night out of several U.S. airfields, including Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, North Carolina. PHOTOGRAPH BY DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY “Tulloch had the B-52 lined up to land on Runway 26, but suddenly the plane started veering off to the right, toward the hamlet of Faro,” says Joel Dobson, author of the definitive book on the crash, . “Then it started rolling over and tearing apart.” A few weeks before, the Air Force and the plane’s builder, Boeing, had realized that a recent modification—fitting the B-52’s wings with fuel bladders—could cause the wings to tear off. Tulloch’s plane was scheduled for a re-fit to resolve the problem, but it would come too late. He knew his plane was doomed, so he hit the “bail out” alarm. Of the eight airmen aboard the B-52, six sat in ejection seats. Adam Mattocks, the third pilot, was assigned a regular jump seat in the cockpit. The youngest man on board, 27-year-old Mattocks was also an Air Force rarity: an African-American jet fighter pilot, reassigned to B-52 duty as Operation Chrome Dome got into full swing. At this moment, it looked like that chance assignment would be his death warrant. “Basically, Mattocks was a dead man,” Dobson says. His only chance was to somehow pull himself through a cockpit window after the other two pilots had ejected. “He was a very religious man,” Dobson says. “He told me he just looked around and said, ‘Well, God, if it’s my time, so be it. But here goes.’” The B-52 crash was front-page news in Goldsboro and around the country… Read More PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF WAYNE COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY It was a surreal moment. The B-52’s forward speed was nearly zero, but the plane had not yet started falling. It was as if Mattocks and the plane were, for a moment, suspended in midair. He seized on that moment to hurl himself into the abyss, leaping as far from the B-52 as he could. He pulled his parachute ripcord. At first it didn’t deploy, perhaps because his air speed was so low. But as he began falling in earnest, the welcome sight of an air-filled canopy billowed in the night sky above him. “Mattocks prayed, ‘Thank you, God!’” says Dobson. “Then the plane exploded in midair and collapsed his chute.” Now Mattocks was just another piece of falling debris from the disintegrating B-52. Somehow, a stream of air slipped into the fluttering chute and it re-inflated. Mattocks was once more floating toward Earth. Looking up at that gently bobbing chute, Mattocks again whispered, “Thank you, God!” Then he looked down. He was heading straight for the burning wreckage of the B-52. “Well, Lord,” he said out loud, “if this is the way it’s going to end, so be it.” Then a gust of wind, or perhaps an updraft from the flames below, nudged him to the south. He landed, unhurt, away from the main crash site. After one last murmur of thanks, Mattocks headed for a nearby farmhouse and hitched a ride back to the Air Force base. Standing at the front gate in a tattered flight suit, still holding his bundled parachute in his arms, Mattocks told the guards he had just bailed from a crashing B-52. Faced with a disheveled African-American man cradling a parachute and telling a cockamamie story like that, the sentries did exactly what you might expect a pair of guards in 1961 rural North Carolina to do: They arrested Mattocks for stealing a parachute. A bomb too far I am bouncing along the backroads of Faro, North Carolina, in Billy Reeves’ pickup truck. He pulls over near a line of trees perpendicular to Shackleford Road. Slowed by its parachute, one of the bombs came to rest in a stand of trees… Read More PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY U.S. AIR FORCE “That’s where they found the intact bomb,” he tells me. “Its parachute opened, so it just floated down here and was hanging from those trees. The tip was barely dug into the ground.” A little farther, a few more turns, and his voice turns somber. “Right up there,” he says, nodding toward a canopy of trees hanging over the road, his voice catching a bit. “That’s where they found the dead man hanging from his parachute in the morning. So sad.” Of the eight airmen aboard the B-52, five ejected—one of whom didn't survive the landing—one failed to eject, and another, in a jump seat similar to Mattocks, died in the crash. To this day, Adam Columbus Mattocks—who died in 2018—remains the only aviator to bail out of a B-52 cockpit without an ejector seat and survive. All around the crash site, Reeves says, local residents continue to find fragments of the plane. There are tales of people still concealing pieces of landing gear and fuselage. Shortly after the crash, Reeves found an entire wooden box of bullets. “They took the box,” he says. “Wouldn’t even let me keep one bullet.” But by far the most significant remnant of that calamitous January night still lies 180 feet or so beneath that cotton field. Although the first bomb floated harmlessly to the ground under its parachute, the second came to a more disastrous end: It plowed into the earth at nearly the speed of sound, sending thousands of pieces burrowing into the ground for hundreds of feet around. The basketball-sized nuclear bomb device was quickly recovered—miraculously intact, its nuclear core uncompromised. The U.S. Government soon announced its safe return and loudly reassured the public that, thanks to the device’s multiple safety systems, the bomb had never come close to exploding. (Related: ) Despite decades of alarmist theories to the contrary, that assessment was probably correct. Like a bungee cord calculated to yank a jumper back mere inches from hitting the ground, the system intervened just in time to prevent a nuclear nightmare. Ironically, it appears that the bomb that drifted gently to earth posed the bigger risk, since its detonating mechanism remained intact. Robert McNamara, who’d been Secretary of Defense at the time of the incident, told reporters in 1983, "The bomb’s arming mechanism had six or seven steps to go through to detonate, and it went through all but one.” “The bottom line for me is the safety mechanisms worked,” says Roy “Doc” Heidicker, the recently retired historian for the Fourth Fighter Wing, which flies out of Johnson Air Force Base. “On the other hand, I know of at least one medical doctor who was considering moving to Goldsboro for a position, but was concerned that it might not be safe because of the Goldsboro broken arrow. So there’s this continuing sense people have: ‘You nearly blew us all up, and you’re not telling us the truth about it.’” But the story of America’s nuclear near-miss isn’t really over, even now. That’s because, even though the government recovered the primary nuclear device, attempts to recover other radioactive remnants of the bomb failed. The main portion of the B-52 plowed into this cotton field, where remnants of one of its two bombs are still buried. PHOTOGRAPH BY BILL NEWCOTT If I were to hold a Geiger counter to the ground of the cotton field in which Billy Reeves and I are standing, chances are it would register nothing unusual. Dirt is a remarkably efficient radiation absorber. But about 180 feet below our shoes, gently radiating away with a half-life of 24,000 years, lies the plutonium core of the bomb’s secondary stage. The bombs in the B-52 weren’t mere Hiroshima-class atomic weapons. They were Mark-39 hydrogen thermonuclear bombs. Each contained not only a conventional spherical atom bomb at its tip, but also a 13-pound rod of plutonium inside a 300-pound compartment filled with the hydrogen isotope lithium-6 deuteride. If you think of the Mark-39 as a pipe bomb, the heat thrown off by the secondary device is the nails and shrapnel that make the initial explosion exponentially more dangerous. Reeves remembers the fleet of massive excavation equipment that was employed as the government tried to dig up the hydrogen core. But the area’s water table was high, and the hole kept filling in. Eventually, the feds gave up. They filled in the hole, drew a 400-foot-radius circle around the epicenter of the impact, and purchased the land inside the circle. The plot is still farmed to this day. Workers just have to refrain from digging more than five feet down. Skimming the tree line beyond the far end of the cotton field, a military plane is coming in on final approach to Johnson Air Force Base. Reeves lives under that flight pattern, and every day brings a memory of that chaotic night in 1961. “When the planes come in, and the windows begin to rattle, I still get the chills,” he says. We trudge across the field toward Big Daddy’s Road, where our vehicles are parked. “Actually, we’ve been really lucky,” he says. “Other than that one, there’s never been another military crash around here.” The muddy ground sucks at our shoes. "Course," he adds, "the one accident we did have dropped a couple of atom bombs on us…" SHARE TWEET COPY READ THIS NEXT The elusive horror of Hiroshima It's hard to fathom the nuclear holocaust that laid waste to this now vibrant city 75 years ago. Twists of fate made Nagasaki a target 75 years ago Did the U.S. plan to drop more than two atomic bombs on Japan? How the advent of nuclear weapons changed the course of history LATEST IN HISTORY & CULTURE Remembering the night two atomic bombs fell—on North Carolina READ READ Our democracy is wounded. How will we heal it? READ READ 200,000 miles of Roman roads provided the framework for empire READ READ America’s first ‘virtual’ inauguration ushers in a transformed era READ READ A brief history of the inaugural ceremonies that set our traditions—and… READ READ LOAD MORE LOAD MORE LATEST MAGAZINE ISSUES LATEST IN TRAVEL Should a haven for grizzlies be off limits to hikers? READ READ PARTNER CONTENT From silverbacks to sips of tea: The ultimate 10-day Rwandan adventure READ READ Whales, myths, and Arctic lakes: Explore Iceland’s new road trip READ READ New Orleans’ historic architecture is uniquely suited to pandemic living READ READ Go inside the close-knit world of Native American rodeo READ READ LOAD MORE LOAD MORE LATEST IN SCIENCE U.S. plans to join WHO initiative to distribute vaccine equitably READ READ COVID-19 will likely be with us forever. Here's how we'll live with it. READ READ Giant predatory worms lurked beneath the ancient seafloor, fossils reveal READ READ How good is COVID-19 testing in the U.S. right now? READ READ We need better face masks—and origami might help READ READ LOAD MORE LOAD MORE POPULAR PHOTO STORIES LATEST IN ENVIRONMENT Has the electric car’s moment arrived at last? READ READ These 6 numbers define the climate challenge in a changing U.S. READ READ Sacred Native American land to be traded to a foreign mining giant READ READ Biden expected to reverse Trump’s order to shrink Utah national monuments READ READ See how volcanoes spark lightning storms READ READ LOAD MORE LOAD MORE LATEST IN ANIMALS We haven’t seen a quarter of known bee species since the 1990s READ READ How these fish—'tiny tanks of the Amazon'—survive piranha bites READ READ Spotted and oddly striped zebras may be a warning for species’ future READ READ Outgoing administration’s last-minute changes to wildlife protections draw… READ READ Enormous pigeon-eating catfish wreaking havoc on Europe’s ecosystems READ READ LOAD MORE LOAD MORE MAMMALS JANUARY 23, 2021 MONKEYING AROUND PHOTOGRAPH BY TIM LAMAN, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION ABOUT US OUR SITES JOIN US FOLLOW US Copyright ? 1996-2015 National Geographic Society|Copyright ? 2015-2021 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reserved America’s first ‘virtual’ inauguration ushers in a transformed era Greener air travel will depend on these emerging technologies Dire wolves were real—and even stranger than we thought The elusive horror of Hiroshima It's hard to fathom the nuclear holocaust that laid waste to this now vibrant city 75 years ago. Twists of fate made Nagasaki a target 75 years ago The Japanese port was not the U.S.'s. first choice for a nuclear attack in August 1945, but shifting circumstances and last-minute choices doomed the city. Did the U.S. plan to drop more than two atomic bombs on Japan? Seventy-five years ago in summer 1945, the United States' plans for unleashing its atomic bombs went beyond Hiroshima and Nagasaki. How the advent of nuclear weapons changed the course of history Many scientists came to regret their role in creating a weapon that can obliterate anyone and anything in its vicinity in seconds. Remembering the night two atomic bombs fell—on North Carolina Our democracy is wounded. How will we heal it? 200,000 miles of Roman roads provided the framework for empire America’s first ‘virtual’ inauguration ushers in a transformed era A brief history of the inaugural ceremonies that set our traditions—and… Should a haven for grizzlies be off limits to hikers? Partner Content From silverbacks to sips of tea: The ultimate 10-day Rwandan adventure Whales, myths, and Arctic lakes: Explore Iceland’s new road trip New Orleans’ historic architecture is uniquely suited to pandemic living Go inside the close-knit world of Native American rodeo U.S. plans to join WHO initiative to distribute vaccine equitably COVID-19 will likely be with us forever. Here's how we'll live with it. Giant predatory worms lurked beneath the ancient seafloor, fossils reveal How good is COVID-19 testing in the U.S. right now? We need better face masks—and origami might help This Man Endured Bee Stings and a Death-Defying Climb to Photograph Last Honey Hunter Going to Great Depths to Illuminate Hidden Underwater Worlds 51 Spectacular Photos of Our World Life Inside Hong Kong’s ‘Coffin Cubicles’ Rare Look Inside North Korea's Massive Military Has the electric car’s moment arrived at last? These 6 numbers define the climate challenge in a changing U.S. Sacred Native American land to be traded to a foreign mining giant Biden expected to reverse Trump’s order to shrink Utah national monuments See how volcanoes spark lightning storms We haven’t seen a quarter of known bee species since the 1990s How these fish—'tiny tanks of the Amazon'—survive piranha bites Spotted and oddly striped zebras may be a warning for species’ future Outgoing administration’s last-minute changes to wildlife protections draw… Enormous pigeon-eating catfish wreaking havoc on Europe’s ecosystems A tiger's roar can be heard as far as two miles away. Elephants are the largest land animals. Wolves can go for more than a week without eating. Under their white fur, polar bears have black skin. A fox can use its tail to communicate with other foxes. Koalas often return to trees they consider their territory. A giraffe's heart weighs about 25 pounds. A typical panda eats half the day. Cheetahs are the only big cats that can’t roar. We use our own and third-party cookies to improve our services, personalize your advertising and remember your preferences. If you continue browsing or click on the accept button on this banner, we understand that you accept the use of cookies on our website. For more information visit our ACCEPT John
On Wednesday, 31 March 2021, 10:19:15 BST, Purler <susan.platter@...> wrote:
I still shudder from watching that Chernobyl series; self sacrifice was the expected thing. Best Susan On 30 Mar 2021, at 14:59, John Miller via <johnmiller051118@...> wrote: Trust me Chris I saw it in a documentary. There are some extraordinarily brave & good people & their are some who are outright evil. Remember the fireman at Kings Cross who ran down to save another person & was burnt to death? He probably knew the odds were 100 to1 against, but he went anyway. That was his job. The Chernobyl workers who went into deadly radiation zones I will endeavour to find the information I am not at my best at the moment Regards john |
|
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
|
|
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On 1 Apr 2021, at 08:07, zuiko <ftog@...> wrote: That is very disappointing, John. ?Mental Health provision doesn’t sound very good.
Chris
|
|
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
|
|
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
|
开云体育That sounds excellent, Jude; I am so sorry your SIL had to experience it that way, though.Best Susan On 1 Apr 2021, at 10:45, Judith Hall <glenidol@...> wrote: My sister in law was hit by a car recently. She was lucky to maintain her feet and didn’t go under but though physically she didn’t initially show injuries she obviously had head trauma and memory problems and ptsd set in and getting very angry, or having panic attacks. Our solicitor is handling things and got her a good psychologist. Driver had criminal record. All on cctv. Police immediately helpful and booked a consult with a counsellor. Different system down here.
Jude On 1 Apr 2021, at 7:15 pm, Purler <susan.platter@...> wrote:
|
开云体育What is wrong there? Is it parents, teachers, or what? Children should not want to bully disabled or different people. Is there some kind of instinct?Best Susan On 1 Apr 2021, at 21:42, John Miller via <johnmiller051118@...> wrote: This fits the psychological profile of offenders Jude. Usually, they start hurting animals, then they move on to hurting young children. Then they go on to women or disabled people. One of my friends at the local job club looked normal, when he was sat down. When he walked you could see he had cerebral palsy. If he didn't get back to his home before the schoolkids came home he would be victimised John |
开云体育Apology seems to be a dirty word for some groups of people. ?I remember telling my boss some time ago that I had apologised to a colleague for arguing with him; the response was, “Never apologise, it’s a sign of weakness.” ?Tommyrot!Apologising, for me, is the only way for people and relationships to survive. Chris
|
Purler
zuiko