Comments on: Palomares, the H-Bomb and Operation Moist Mop

By: US1484AF

US1484AF — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 20:40:00 +0000

A good question would be is how many of our US military service members that where there are now sick by the radiation? How about doing real investigation into this? Has the US State Department reached an agreement with Spain over the second cleanup effort? Secretary Clinton has said this would be resolved befor her mandate was up.

By: RJBrown409

RJBrown409 — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 11:26:00 +0000

The accident was not caused by a collision. It was caused by the tail breaking off because of turbulence just like the B52 over Maine 3 years earlier. This lie has been propagated over the years to protect both Boeing and the Air Force. 3 years later and the problem was still unresolved. Inaction on a known defect caused this the most notorious of all the “Broken Arrows”

By: Jon P Baker

Jon P Baker — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 13:49:00 +0000

Although I have a dim recollection of the Palomares event at the time it occurred (when I was 17), I first heard the full story when I was resident in southern Spain in 2005 from a friend who had attended a talk in a coastal resort close to Palomares given by one of the British experts called in to oversee the removal of the radioactive debris from the affected region. My friend was refused permission to record the talk – evidently the topic was still causing nervousness in official circles even 20 years afterwards (a side note which compounds the slightly unreal Dr Strangelove context is that the talk was given in the local British Legion club, at the time owned by two elderly Germans).

Apart from the bizarre chronology involving the James Bond film ‘Thunderball’ which seems to closely mirror events at Palomares before they actually happened, there remain significant gaps in the official account including so far as I am aware no detailed comment on the state of the H bomb which was recovered from the sea bed, the means used to locate it (if it had been by tracking the radiation plume this might indicate whether the bomb remained intact at the final point of rest at the bottom of the mediterranean), the apparent lack of monitoring of the sea around that area for radioactivity since then and the lack of information as to the ’safe storage’ facility for the contaminated material (as opposed to simply dumping material over the side of the ship in the way back to America).

Two final points not covered in the main story above – according to the narrative from the British expert, the disaster resulted from the wing tip of one plane (presumably the bomber) touching the wing of the other plane as it moved off; wings are where fuel is stored on aeroplanes from which it seems a dreadful irony that had the wings still been full of fuel rather than a mixture of fuel and air, the outcome would have not been so disastrous. Finally, (according to the British expert’s account) the US government transferred an oil-fired desalination plant from Israel to Spain in part payment for the disaster though the plant was never used for reasons never publicly disclosed though speculation has centred around the rising cost of oil or a possible plant failure.

By: Robert Boshuizen

Robert Boshuizen — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 14:16:00 +0000

It is a small world. We vacationed just 5 miles south of there every summer from 1968 to 1973 (Puerto Del Ray) and never knew about the incident until now

By: Sean Martin

Sean Martin — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 12:07:00 +0000

Its blotted out by the background glowing :O)

By: Mark Gormley

Mark Gormley — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 11:56:00 +0000

Search “Cuevas del Almanzora spain” and you will find it

By: Christopher Rose

Christopher Rose — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 11:10:00 +0000

Having read this story on the BBC today, I followed the link to here. As I am in southern Spain I was curious as to exactly where Palomares is.

A Google Maps search shows only a neighbourhood of Sevilla, which obviously isn’t the right place, so where exactly is Palomares and why doesn’t it show up on maps?

By: German Alberto

German Alberto — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 04:10:00 +0000

of course how are you gonna trust the goverment of the U.S.? They will never tell the truth that’s politics. They should be testing the soil and see how much radioactivity it is on the ground. Hiroshima and Nagasaky still have some radioactivity after all these years so why not Palomares?

By: k1ynn

k1ynn — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 22:51:00 +0000

     I arrived on the Palomares site the evening of the crash, as a USAF 2nd Lt with a Mobile Communications Group crew sent from France. We arrived by Spanish AF helicopter, set up temporary radio link to SAC in Madrid, then provided 2 way classified communications with a mobile radio van the next day.
    Three crew members of B-52 survived using ejection seats. None of the KC-135 crew survived.A fisherman reported seeing “half a man” hanging from a parachute about 2
miles from where a B-52 survivor was parachuting into the sea, a mile
from his boat. He cut his expensive net loose to pick up the airman,
then motored over to where he saw the second chute hit the water, which
he could not find. The weapon’s parachute was much larger, so it landed
further away than he estimated, but since it was only the second
parachute he had ever seen, he assumed that it was the same size. He was
rewarded for helping find the missing bomb, which was located a mile or
so from his dead reckoning estimate.
    The area had ancient Phoenician lead mines, with high normal
background radiation. Fear was that a weapon might have fallen into an
old mine shaft, then covered by naturally radioactive soil. “Camp Wilson” was set up the following day with airmen from SAC bases in Madrid and Moron, Spain. SAC Airmen walked across fields looking for pieces of wreckage for a month.
    US Navy was in charge of the water search, including the submersible “Alvin”, which was briefly entangeled in the underwater bomb’s parachute.