The flight was uneventful until the scheduled mid-air refueling from a KC-135 Stratotanker, which had to be conducted manually because of an error with the B-52G's autopilot. Upernavik | Owing to the extreme weather conditions, Arctic darkness, and unnavigable ice, the base relied largely on the Thule representative of the Royal Greenland Trade Department, Ministry of Greenland, Jens Zinglersen, to raise and mount the search using native dog sled teams. Peterson Air force Base - AF Medicine, 21st Mission Support Group Following the Palomares and Thule accidents—the only cases where the conventional explosives of U.S. nuclear bombs accidentally detonated and dispersed nuclear materials[72]—investigators concluded the high explosive (HE) used in nuclear weapons was not chemically stable enough to withstand the forces involved in an aircraft accident.

Der zur Militärbasis nächstgelegene größere Ort ist das 108 km Luftlinie entfernte Qaanaaq im Norden, wohin die ehemaligen Bewohner 1953, zwei Jahre nach dem Bau der Basis, zwangsumgesiedelt wurden. Then his unit mates took the traditional magic markers and made his nose, and much of his face, blue. They awaited word from D'Mario that they were over land, and when he confirmed that the aircraft was directly over the lights of Thule Air Base, the four crewmen ejected, followed shortly thereafter by Haug and D'Mario. Although they did not work at Camp Hunziker, the Danes worked at the Tank Farm where the contaminated ice was collected, in the port where the contaminated debris was shipped from, and they also serviced the vehicles used in the clean-up. Stars and Stripes visited to find out about the mission and the people who get the privilege of spending a year in this remote and remotely understood assignment. The US established the Thule Air Base in 1941 to help Denmark defend its colonies from increasing German aggression. Thule Air Base, Qaanaaq: Address, Phone Number, Thule Air Base Reviews: 4/5 Thule Air Base or Thule Air Base/Pituffik Airport (IATA: THU, ICAO: BGTL), is the United States Air Force's northernmost base, located 1,207 km (750 mi) north of the Arctic Circle and 1,524 km (947 mi) from the North Pole on the northwest side of the island of Greenland. Siorapaluk • Workers involved in the clean-up program campaigned for compensation for radiation-related illnesses they experienced in the years after the accident. Some drink. The Institute of Cancer Epidemiology found a 50 percent higher cancer rate in the workers than in the general population, but could not conclude that radiation exposure was to blame. THULE AIR BASE, Greenland -- Contractors stationed at Thule Air Base, Greenland, responded to a distress call from a commercial ship Monday, Aug. 3, saving all six members of its crew before towing the ship to port at Thule for repairs. The operations building where passengers gather to board the plane back to the United States is no bigger than a 7-Eleven. On 21 January 1968, an aircraft accident involving a United States Air Force (USAF) B-52 bomber occurred near Thule Air Base in the Danish territory of Greenland. They informed him that at least six crew ejected successfully and the aircraft was carrying four nuclear weapons.

The action was unsuccessful, but resulted in the release of hundreds of classified documents. 821st Air Base Group 821st Air Base Group 821st Support Squadron 821st Security Forces Squadron 12th Space Warning Squadron Det. [105][106][107], A BBC News report in 2008 confirmed through declassified documents and interviews with those involved that a bomb had been lost.

The decision not to restart on-alert bomber missions was also a reflection of the strategic decline of manned nuclear weapon delivery in favor of unmanned delivery via ICBMs, which had already eclipsed the number of bombers in the United States by April 1964. [36], The accident caused controversy at the time and in the years since. Thule Air Base, on Greenland's west coast, developed in secret in the early 1950s as a project reminiscent of a spy novel plot. One document from July 1968 reads, "Fact that this operation includes search for object or missing weapon part is to be treated as Confidential NOFORN",[52] meaning it was not to be disclosed to non-US nationals. Defenses", "Foreign Relations of the United States 1964–1968, Volume XII, Western Europe: Denmark", "Danish Prime Minister Gives Tacit Go-Ahead For U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Greenland", "Secrecy on a Sliding Scale: U.S. Nuclear Weapons Deployments And Danish Non-Nuclear Policy", "Following Bomber Crash, U.S. Copenhagen Embassy Urges State Department To Lie About Flight Route", "Arctic atomic bomb should be examined again", "The Greenpeace book of the nuclear age; The hidden history – the human cost", "Risø examine radiation at the Thule base", "Project Crested Ice: The Thule Accident", "Thule Nuclear Weapons Accident: Dose Evaluation Report", "Relevance of Nuclear Weapons Clean-up Experience to Dirty Bomb Response", 1968 photos of Thule Air Base and surrounds, Underwater photos from the Star III submarine, Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, Declassified US government video of clean-up operation, National Institute for Radiation Protection (Denmark), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash&oldid=964749741, Accidents and incidents involving the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, Aviation accidents and incidents caused by in-flight fires, Aviation accidents and incidents in Greenland, Aviation accidents and incidents involving nuclear weapons, Cold War military history of the United States, Wikipedia indefinitely move-protected pages, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with Danish-language sources (da), Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 27 June 2020, at 10:31. Ittoqqortoormiit • [43], The USAF worked with Danish nuclear scientists to consider the clean-up options. Six crew members ejected safely, but one who did not have an ejection seatwas killed while trying to bail out. One airman said goodbye to his wife and two children, their weeklong visit coming all too quickly to a close. Juni 2020 um 21:38 Uhr bearbeitet. [4] Diese wurde am 1. On 21 January 1968, an aircraft accident (sometimes known as the Thule affair or Thule accident (/ˈtuːli/); Danish: Thuleulykken) involving a United States Air Force (USAF) B-52 bomber occurred near Thule Air Base in the Danish territory of Greenland. [76], Denmark's nuclear-free zone policy originated in 1957, when the coalition government decided in the lead-up to the Paris NATO summit not to stockpile nuclear weapons on its soil in peacetime. [16] Within five minutes, the aircraft's fire extinguishers were depleted, electrical power was lost and smoke filled the cockpit to the point that the pilots could not read their instruments. [9] He attempted to fight it with two fire extinguishers, but could not put it out. The documents revealed that USAF personnel involved in the clean-up were not subsequently monitored for health problems, despite the likelihood of greater exposure to radiation than the Danes. The bomber crashed onto sea ice in North Star Bay,[a] Greenland, causing the conventional explosives aboard to detonate and the nuclear payload to rupture and disperse, which resulted in radioactive contamination. Th… Guidelines on Access to Greenland, 21st Medical Group [3], Im Jahr 1951 begann das United States Army Corps of Engineers im Auftrag der United States Air Force unter dem Codenamen ROBIN (später BLUE JAY) mit dem Bau einer 10.000 Fuß (rund 3 km) langen Landebahn und einer zugehörigen Basis. Equipment suffered high failure rates and batteries worked for shorter periods in the cold; operators modified their scientific instruments to allow the battery packs to be carried under their coats to extend the batteries' lifespan. Kulusuk •

Moriusaq • [112][113], A B-52G, similar to the one that crashed at Thule Air Base, Literature review of declassified documents. Juli 2018 explodierte ungefähr 21 Kilometer westlich der Halbinsel Avanersuaq in 43 Kilometern Höhe ein Meteorit mit einer Sprengkraft von 2,1 Kilotonnen – etwas weniger als die einer kleinen Atombombe.[9]. "[95] The workers said the lack of proof was attributable to the lack of appropriate medical monitoring. First Lt. Matthew Smokovitz, 25, of Canton, Mich., was spending his last few days at Thule, and said the amount people drink rises when the sun goes down in October and doesn’t reappear for months. [44] The Danes also requested that the nuclear material not be left in Greenland after the cleanup operation was complete, therefore requiring General Hunziker to remove the contaminated ice and wreckage to the United States for disposal. [4][7][b] The monitoring mission started when the designated aircraft reached a waypoint at 75°0′N 67°30′W / 75.000°N 67.500°W / 75.000; -67.500 in Baffin Bay and entered a figure-eight holding pattern above the air base at an altitude of 35,000 feet (11,000 m).
Aappilattoq (Upernavik) • Greenland was granted self-government in 1979 by Denmark but remains within the kingdom, so 400 Danes are here doing the support functions with the help of native Greenlanders. [87] In doing so, the report concluded, he tacitly gave the United States the go-ahead to store nuclear weapons at Thule. 1, 23rd Space Operations Squadron The gym is top-notch and always has special programs, including a four-country hockey tournament while Canadian forces were deployed here for Boxtop. 21st Communications Squadron [102] Research conducted in 2003 concluded, "Plutonium in the marine environment at Thule presents an insignificant risk to man.
[73], The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory developed the "Susan Test", which uses a special projectile whose design simulates an aircraft accident by squeezing and nipping explosive material between its metal surfaces. He explained the logic behind the decision to abandon the search: "There was disappointment in what you might call a failure to return all of the components ... it would be very difficult for anyone else to recover classified pieces if we couldn't find them. Smokovitz is hereby accorded the honor as a Knight of the Blue Nose …”. Sean Lohr is a contractor working at Detachment 1. On the ground, the pristine becomes practical: a long runway from bygone missions, the hangars and support buildings at the entrance to America’s northernmost base and military community. Dr. Kaare Ulbak of the Danish National Institute of Radiation Protection said, "We have very good registers for cancer incidents and cancer mortality and we have made a very thorough investigation. The people that are here, they’re ready to go have fun; they want to hang out, they want to talk; they’re social.”. [111] For the first time, the report was able to present an estimate of the amount of plutonium contained in the pits of the primaries.


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