9/16/2010:
North Dakota has been the home of two Air Force bases since the 1950s, and both Minot and Grand Forks have benefitted economically. However, both cities have faced risks from the very presence of the nuclear weapons carried on B-52 bombers. The risk was usually minimized by the careful work of the airmen who serviced the weapons and the bombers, but thirty years ago on this date in 1980, the Grand Forks community was breathing a sigh of relief after a close call.
The day before, a B-52 bomber had caught fire and, "fed by fuel" from the "B-52's wing tank," it "burned like a blowtorch for nearly three hours," according to a Chicago Tribune news story, published in 1991 - eleven years after the incident.
Officers at the air base evacuated the area within 2,000 feet, or about half a mile, as standard procedure, so that firefighters could extinguish the fire. There was a big problem there that day, because the B-52 bomber contained a nuclear-tipped missile, likely the "SRAM-A short-range missile," which could have been set afire had the flames reached the bomb bay.
"Although a thermonuclear blast would not have occurred" if the weapon burned, the fire still would have "detonated conventional explosives in the triggering mechanism of the bombs." That explosion would have blown deathly-dangerous plutonium "into microscopic bits" and thrown the plutonium "into the atmosphere to drift downwind."
Many of the 75,000 people living within 20 miles of the air base could have been exposed to the plutonium. Breathing or ingesting plutonium particles can lead to death, tissue damage or cancer, depending upon the dosage. An expert testifying at a closed Senate hearing was quoted in the Tribune story. He said the accident would have been "worse than [the] Chernobyl" nuclear reactor meltdown in the Soviet Union. The plutonium "particles in the soil would remain radioactive for 24,000 years."
The mayor of Grand Forks, H.C. "Bud" Wessman, was confronted by a difficult decision. He had several public safety options, yet little time to consider them. He could have evacuated the city as quickly as possible, or he could have advised all citizens to get into basements or fallout shelters, or he could have activated the emergency broadcast system and warning sirens, letting the people choose for themselves what to do. Or, he could do nothing and hope the B-52 fire would go out.
What did he do? He waited.
For three long hours, firefighters fought the fire. Yet another factor, a strong 26 mile-per-hour wind, blowing away from the bomb bay, may have saved the day. The fire went out, but only after the wing tank ran out of fuel.
The Air Force later changed its policies and removed that type of missile from B-52s because of the risk. Air Force officials said, however, that if the wind had been blowing toward the bomb bay "the Air Force would have taken more drastic measures to fight it."
And so the strong winds of the Red River Valley, at times an annoyance and at times a blizzard force, may have rescued Mayor Bud Wessman and the Grand Forks Air Force Base from catastrophe back in September of 1980.
Dakota Datebook written by Dr. Steve Hoffbeck, History Department, MSU Moorhead.
Sources of information:
The story shows up on September 16, 1980, in a UPI story carried in various newspapers, including "Bomber Hit by Fire," Altoona [PA] Mirror, September 16, 1980, p. 11.
"Dakota Aide Suggests B-52 That Was Afire Carried Nuclear Weapons," New York Times, September 17, 1980, p. A13.
Fire quotes are from:
"Fire on Bomber in 1980 Pose Nuclear Risk," Chicago Tribune, August 13, 1991, p. 2.
"Stiff Winds Prevented American Chernobyl," Denver Post, August 13, 1991, p. A1.
"A Brush With Nuclear Catastrophe; Wind Prevented A Fire From Triggering A B'52's Nuclear Weapons In North Dakota In 1980, An Expert Says," Philadelphia Inquirer, August 13, 1991, p. A1.
Wessman had been "reassured by the Air Force" that "there was no danger of a nuclear accident" and that "their assurances played a large part in his decision not to warn city residents or order an evacuation." He said, "Sometimes you've got to operate on faith in what people tell you," in "Report: Wind may have prevented disaster in '80 in Grand Forks B-52 fire," Minneapolis Star-Tribune, August 5, 1991, p. 11A.
The Winnipeg Free Press, in the time just after the B-52 fire, reported that the Grand Forks fire chief, Richard Aulich, had decided not to evacuate the city because the Air Force had not evacuated Air Force families from its base housing, but that he was going to discuss the incident more deeply with Air Force officials a short time after the fire, "Bomber's weaponry a mystery," Winnipeg Free Press, September 17, 1980.
Additional information, available online, includes:
USAF Mishap Report, Headquarters 15th Air Force, March AFB, California, September 29, 1980; "North Dakota's Near-Nuclear Disaster," Peninsula Times Tribune, August 13, 1991, pp. A-1, A-6; Kidder UCRL-LR-107454, p. E1. Cited in Chuck Hansen, "Appendix 3: Typical U.S. Nuclear Weapon Accidents: 1950-1980," p. 61, at http://www.cdi.org/Issues/NukeAccidents/Accidents.htm, accessed on December 2, 2009