On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 12:46:38 +0100, Alan B. Pearce wrote: > >Greenham Common. UK > You mean there was a nuclear explosion at Greenham Common? > Alan (going into panic mode, live not that far from there) >From Russell's nuclear accidents post... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_accidents February 28, 1958 - At the US airbase at Greenham Common, England, a B-47E of the 310th Bomb Wing developed problems shortly after takeoff and jettisoned its two 1,700 gallon external fuel tanks. They missed their designated safe impact area and one hit a hanger whilst the other struck the ground 65 feet behind a parked B-47E. The parked B-47E, which was fuelled with a pilot onboard and carrying a 1.1 megaton B28 thermonuclear free fall bomb, was engulfed by flames. The conflagration took sixteen hours and over a million gallons of water to extinguish, partly because of the magnesium alloys used in the aircraft. The fire detonated the high explosives in the nuclear weapon and convection spread plutonium and uranium oxides over a wide area - foliage up to 13 kilometres away was contaminated with uranium-235. Although two men were killed and eight injured, the US and UK governments kept the accident secret - as late as 1985, the British Government claimed that a taxiing aircraft had struck a parked one and that no fire was involved. Dan _______________________________________________ http://www.piclist.com View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist