1960 New Jersey BOMARC Missile Fire

when the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear device in August of 1949 some four years ahead when Western intelligence services thought that they might created new challenges for Western defense planning the United States had developed its first jet interceptor with a northrop f-89 scorpion but against the nuclear armed enemy a jet interceptor just might not be enough because if even one bomber got through it would do enormous damage and so the United States decided to fight nuclear weapons with nuclear weapons mounting small nuclear warheads on missiles for air defense the explosive force of a nuclear explosion reduced the need for pinpoint accuracy and increased the chance that the target bombers would be completely destroyed but one of the first systems to mount these nuclear warheads had an accident within a year of being deployed reminding us once again that when you're dealing with nuclear weapons there's always a risk involved the 1960 bomarc missile fire at McGuire Air Force Base deserves to be remembered the bomarc missile system was developed for the United States as a joint project of the Boeing Corporation and the University of Michigan's Michigan aeronautical research center the name is a combination of the acronym for the two at first the weapon was designated as an unmanned interceptor guys that was required because technically ground-to-air missiles were the province of the US Army which was developing its own ground-to-air missiles as the government became more concerned with vulnerability to attack both the Army and Air Force projects were approved and the missile was designated a m99 for interceptor missile the IEM 99a had an operational radius of 200 miles was designed to fly at Mach two point five to two point a to the cruising altitude of 60,000 feet while the project initially envisioned some 40 bases and 5,000 missiles in the US and Canada a change in emphasis from bombers to intercontinental ballistic missiles meant that deployment only actually occurred at eight sites in the US and two in Canada with a total of 409 missiles produced the first of those would become operational in 1959 declared operational in September 1959 the first bomarc site was Joint Base mcguire-dix-lakehurst in Burlington County New Jersey presently 16.1 southeast of Trenton the Philadelphia Inquirer called the base location an area of scrubby pine forest with few residents that was suitably described as being in the middle of nowhere the site operated by the 46 air defense missile squadron was composed of missile support buildings and administration building in the launch area the 46 numbered over 300 officers and airmen the launch area or firing line contained four rows of 14 concrete shelters the semi hardened shelters nicknamed coffins contained i.m 99a missiles stored horizontally the missiles were kept in ready storage condition meaning that they could be launched in two minutes after the launch order of the shelter's roof would slide open and the missile would be raised to vertical the launch area included 56 mode 2 launcher shelters each missile was 40 6.6 feet long weighed fifteen thousand five hundred pounds and carry a thousand pound conventional warhead or a w4t nuclear warhead the w4t was a fusion boosted fission nuclear warhead with a seven to ten kiloton yield between approximately half to two-thirds of the yield of the little boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima the warhead was considered to be lethal to a medium bomber aircraft up to about two-thirds of a mile the warheads were mounted to the missiles for 90 day intervals after which the other with periodic inspection and maintenance the missiles themselves also required periodic maintenance checks to ensure their rapid firing capability the bomarc a employed a liquid fueled booster and two Ram Jets in flight the liquid fuel rocket engine boosted the bow mark to Mach 2 when its ramjet engines fueled by 80 octane gasoline would take over for the remainder of the flight every 90 days the missiles were D fueled decontaminated and then refueled using pressurized helium to push the propellants out of the tanks the liquid fueled booster rockets used hypergolic fuel hypergolic propellant combination used in a rocket engine is one whose components spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with each other the two propellant compounds usually consists of a fuel and an oxidizer the main advantages of hypergolic propellants are that they can be stored as liquids at room temperature and that engines which are powered by them are easy to ignite reliably and repeatedly this combination meant that the missiles would not have to have their fuel stored separately requiring time to fuel the missile however hypergolic propellants are difficult to handle due to their extreme toxicity and corrosiveness they are also highly explosive if the red fuming nitric acid oxidizer came in contact with the aniline fuel and would explode the fuel was stored in the missiles and there was a helium tank between the two that was pressurized during an alert for the 15 seconds it took to erect the missile into its vertical launch position less than a year after the base became operational on June 7th 1960 at approximately 3:00 p.m. sensors in shelter 204 at the bomarc site detected a fire caused by an explosion the helium tank that was set between the missiles fuel tanks became over pressurized and burst the ensuing pressure shock ruptured the propellant tanks causing their contents to spontaneously ignite the fire then caused the remaining fuel to explode the explosion set trap null for flying and blew off the shelters corrugated steel roof and still bus doors the fire burned fiercely spewing 20 foot long blow touch like flames and black smoke drifted southward local firefighters responded to the alarm within three to five minutes Albert Sweeney and nearby farmer from cook town was quoted in the Philadelphia Inquirer I looked at across my open field a massive smoke was coming from the woods across the field I thought it was a plane crash or that somehow the woods had caught fire a nearby gas station owner named John Terence was quoted in the Trenton New Jersey newspaper that Trent odeon saying it looked like smoke from a smokestack the paper went on to say that was good news to him at least it wasn't the dreaded mushroom cloud not yet anyway he told his wife to be ready to hop in the car and gun it out of there other locals were alerted by the response The Enquirer quoted local factory worker James Nash there was a flutter on a sputter and here we're coming trucks in the like from Dix and McGuire a former soldier from Fort Dix recalled the daily events in the year 2000 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer Bertram grass was an Army reservist who was at Fort Dix for advanced infantry training his squad was returning from the machine gun range when quote all hell broke loose grat said we were tired and all sweaty and dirty and we saw this puff of black smoke come out now we're sirens going off all over the place afraid that were the missile to explode this squad would be in the blast radius he said drop that stuff meeting the machine guns ammunition and tripods and let's get the hell out of here the fire was exceptionally hot as the Trento nyan noted it twisted the shelter's steel support beams like pieces of licorice and sent a massive black smoke plume swirling hundreds of feet into the air the fire was confined to the single bunker and wasn't threatening other bunkers but at that point the Air Force made a mistake a sergeant contacted the State Police asking them to shut off some roads in the area the request wasn't unusual it was done under orders but apparently the sergeant where did that request well poorly as big a dear general gilbert l Pritchard who was commander of the New York air defense sector later told the Bridgewater New Jersey Courier news I am now sure that the sergeant either implied or stated that there had been a nuclear explosion that news of the state in action as the Trento NIA noted at 3:15 p.m. the news had clattered in over the teletype at the State Police Troop C headquarters in Princeton atomic warhead explosion the state police alerted civil defense officials in Trenton and Burlington counties start assembling emergency equipment and to round up vehicles for mass evacuations well the area's civil defense organization was put on alert Military Police New Jersey State Police and local emergency personnel isolated the area demand and he spread the fire and potential radiation based personnel and a handful of nearby residents were evacuated as a precaution firefighters from a guire Air Force Base and Fort Dix fought the fire along with local volunteer departments while the fire was contained within the shelter it was nonetheless according to Enquirer a difficult fire to fight fire burned for around 45 minutes and firefighters despite their own potential radiation exposure continued to pump water on the shelter throughout the night to cool down the remains and allow inspection by Air Force an Atomic Energy Commission experts no one had been to the bunker at the time of the fire and there were no reported deaths or injuries the damage was contained to the bunker itself but the missile which newspapers at the time said cost between 1 and 1.2 million dollars was a total loss at the time following policy the Air Force didn't even admit that a nuclear weapon was involved but it was the fire so hot that the warhead had fallen into the molten metal as the missile collapsed the weapon had not detonated an impact that was almost impossible because of its safeguards general Pritchard said the bow marks are more foolproof than soap and therefore spokesman described them as as safe as the neighborhood gas station in fact the conventional high explosive intended to trigger the weapon had not even exploded in the fire but that nation was not the only problem much of the device was made of thoriated magnesium the New York Times explained the metal already radioactive becomes highly radioactive when it is burnt as firefighters sprayed water on the wreckage for fifteen hours materials from the shelter flowed under the front shelter doors down the asphalt apron and Street between the row of shelters and into the drainage ditch over the course of the next few days general Pritchard apologized from the stake and message that it caused unnecessary civil defense drill and the Air Force and local officials tried to reassure the public that few people were ever put in peril and that there was no radiation danger to the public but inside the shelter alpha radiation from the missiles plutonium registered over two million counts per minute inspectors needed special suits with respirators to protect them after examining the remains of the warhead the inspection determined that between 2 and 11 ounces of oxidized plutonium were unaccounted for still the Air Force reported that contamination was restricted to an area immediately beneath the weapon and adjacent elongated area approximately 100 feet long and that spot checks had shown no trace of dispersed radiation outside the facility's boundaries Philadelphia area authorities monitored air and water in the area but reported no concerns the area was fenced off the remaining shelter structure and floor were sprayed with a special thick paint that effectively formed a barrier to the Alpha radiation and four inches of concrete were poured on the apron surrounding the infants to shelter 2:04 eventually some 10 acres were covered in concrete but by 1980 the governor of New Jersey was questioning the extent of the contamination an April 1996 report indicated that in addition to plutonium contamination there may have been more dangerous uranium among the concerns at the time the Air Force reported that the missile launcher from shelter 204 had been removed from the shelter shortly after the accident and that no records about the manner of disposal of the missile launcher existed the report recommended that potentially contaminated material be moved and shipped to Department of Energy or private permitted disposal facility between 2002 and 2004 the shelter was demolished in over 20,000 cubic yards of plutonium contaminated soil was excavated and removed but later analysis determined that the remediation had not addressed all impacted areas of the site in the 2009 report a remediation firm hired to do an analysis of the site Cabrera Services of Hartford Connecticut indicated that the explosion fire in shelter 204 resulted in the release of not only weapons-grade plutonium but also small quantities of weapons-grade uranium in depleted uranium within the confines of the site further remediation was completed in 2008 in 2009 the cleanup was not declared complete until 2010 nearly 50 years after the accident the total cost of cleanup was between 22 and 24 million dollars despite the initial claims a 2013 study found the release of material to be comparable to that of the 1962 b-52 crash near Palomares Spain despite the accident the McGuire bomarc base remained active clear until October 1972 when all bomarc missiles were finally retired the site has never been sold or change to another purpose by the air force is still on McGuire Air Force Base grounds it's been nominated to the National Register of Historic Places although the actual site of the fire is still off-limits due to low level plutonium contamination the event occurred during a tense period of the Cold War just a month after the 1960 u-2 incident the Soviets made some propaganda reports on the incident claiming that parts of New York City had been evacuated in a panic and speculated that such an event could spark nuclear war a statement released from Moscow and June 11 said people are beginning to understand where the psychosis of American leaders could lead the country and whole world in the end the safeguards on the bomarc missile succeeded the warhead didn't explode even under extreme conditions it's a testament to the exacting standards used in the design of both the missile and the warhead but still 50 years and 23 million dollars of remediation reminds us that nothing to do with nuclear weapons is without risk I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets of forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on Facebook Instagram Twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring com and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 200,532

Keywords: history, the history guy, history guy, us history, cold war, nuclear accident, new jersey, bomarc

Id: K4F0vswjqkA

Length: 13min 50sec (830 seconds)

Published: Mon May 11 2020