A Near-Miss Nuclear Explosion (Texas 2005)

In March 2005, a nuclear warhead almost exploded in Texas. The near miss accident occurred in Amarillo, when workers at the Pantex nuclear weapons plant bungled the dismantling of a W-56 warhead, a weapon 100 times stronger than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II.

Details of the averted catastrophe have been kept under wraps until last month, when the Department of Energy (DOE) fined the company that operates the plant, BWX Technologies, $110,000 for safety violations.

In a letter obtained by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), technicians at the plant blamed the accident on severe working conditions, including mandatory 72 to 84 hour work weeks. One nuclear scientist told POGO that he "would not work on his car engine if he were fatigued from a 72-hour work week, and sure as hell would not work on a nuclear weapon."

<snip>

In 2007, production goals at the plant will increase by 50 percent, which POGO calls a "recipe for disaster." Clearly it's time for the DOE to step in and show that the government is serious about nuclear security, both abroad and at home.

More:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=149667

:scared:

because it takes a precisely timed explosion to detonate the weapon, think. Safety experts in the nuclear arms industry have said that this almost caused the weapon to detonate. They know more about nuclear weapons than you do.

Here is the original POGO letter:
http://pogo.org/p/homeland/hl-061201-bodman.html

And it really doesn't matter if they bother to tell us about accidents. Either we'll all see the mushroom cloud or we'll read about the "near miss accident" a few months later.

What's really frightening is that I believe this administration would be quick to say that it was a terrorist attack.

A previous article mentioned a dangerous ammount of pressure was applied to the warhead. I assume it means the bomb was almost crushed.

The detonators in implosion-type nuclear weapons must be set off at the same time to ignite the high explosives to achieve symmetrical pressure on the plutonium or uranium fuel. In this manner, the fuel goes critical, and you have an atomic explosion.

Crushing the bomb likely would've caused the high explosives to ignite, but since it wasn't triggered by the detonators, it is likely the explosion would've applied asymmetric pressure on the fuel, which means it probably would not have gone critical. Even if it did go critical, it would've only been a partial reaction at most.

However, in either case, the big killer would be radioactive fallout from a dirty bomb explosion. You would still get the same problem with radiation if you only had a partial nuclear reaction in the bomb. Granted, the explosion would've been far larger with just a fraction of the fuel going critical, but the radioactive fallout would still be a problem.

From the 5th (and last) page:



Full-on nuclear detonation, or 'just' a dirty bomb scenario... when you are talking destruction on the scale described above, does it really even matter? :shrug:

:nuke:


:kick: and R

Selatius is closer to correct; it's hard to imagine a weapon
going off accidentally with anything resembling a high yield
or even a wide-area dispersion of fallout. (Pantex would be
a total loss, but probably not the entire area around the
plant.)

We've been there before. Read about "SL-1", linked below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1

Tesha

The article you linked talks about a U.S. experimental military nuclear power reactor, which suffered catastrophic failure because the control rod was pulled out too far, causing a super-heated steam explosion.

Other then the fact that both the SL-1 incident and Pantex both deal with radioactive elements, there really isn't very much similarity between the two at all.

I still feel that the Pantex employees know what they are talking about.

Prompt criticality would be the key in both events.

The key question in either case is: how long could
the device remain "assembled" while still being beyond
"criticality". The answer for an accident with a nuclear
weapon, same as for SL-1, is "not too long".

Otherwise, propose a scenario that actually detonates
the weapon in an "efficient" manner.

Tesha

...(if I am interpreting it correctly) is that the Pantex employees are either wrong in their assesment of the danger, or are exaggerating it?

I'm not a nuclear weapons expert (nor do I play one on TV), so I'm afraid I decline to propose any scenarios.

Maybe 25 cents.
:kick:

they can get a new CEO in Jan 2009. That'll fix things.

on her evening AAR show.

I hope to hell it is situated far away from high population areas.

According to the anonymous letter, an incident at the plant would take out Amarillo.

Y'all KNOW it's true. The BA would NEVER ADMIT to a "mistake" like this. Never.

...can you humor me Ian? I must be really slow today, as I don't get why you replied with a link to the Texas election results?

:shrug:

allowed in the rework area. I don't know if the amount is classified but it's a fairly small amount. It's just this type of scenario that the limits are imposed. I can assure you from first-hand experience that those facilities are extremely clean and free of any radioactive contamination. Any release would have been contained, save a detonation.
Even though the timing is critical, all firing signals derive from a single point and there are safeties in place to prevent a detonation without the proper sequence of events.

This plant is located in Amarillo, and I live in San Antonio, about 500 miles away. If this thing had detonated, would I have been affected by it?

A full yield ground burst would have vaporized a lot of material and would cause high levels ofcontamination over a wide area. The ony way to get a full yield would be a deliberate act.

I don't think that would happen. That weapon is not something that could be made into an IED very easily. No one person is allowed to approach alone within a given distance. The military guards are very strict about that. I've had to stare down the barrel of a loaded and locked M-60 because I wasn't watching what I was doing.

I gotta say, that article freaked me out quite a bit. :hi:

is that someone would get injured from working too many hours.

I thought about it a while and concluded the biggest danger involving a weapon would be it overheating and catching fire. Plutonium burns easily and the explosive would also. Since the work area is in a facility designed to contain such an event, the biggest problem would be the decontamination.

The people that do that kind of work are very professional. The procedures are inflexible and there is no place for someone who gets creative.

EVERY DAMNED THING IS ABOUT THE FUCKING PROFITS.

FUCK

of nuclear weapons being in the hands of fallible humans and feel very lucky that we have never had a catastrophic nuclear accident (except for Chernobyl). Then we haear talk of "safe" nukes and "tactical" nukes emanating from our military.

Maybe theis incident ws not as potentially catastrophic as it first sounded but it should make us all think. The facts surrounding the case however hightlight the icredible hubris of companies that will put profit above safety concerns, even when dealing with nuclear materials. That is a scandal.

I thought it was the same incident I discussed with someone who works at the plant. Had to do with a crack in a plutonium core or somesuch and the wonders of duct tape. But that conversation actually happened in early 2004. Need to check this one out.