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British Defense Ministry Releases List of Nuclear Weapons Accidents
The British Defense Ministry has released a list of 20 accidents involving nuclear weapons that occurred from 1960 to 1981, the London Guardian reported yesterday. According to the list, two accidents involved trucks carrying nuclear weapons that overturned and two involved cars crashing into convoys that were transporting nuclear weapons, the Guardian reported. The list also describes four occasions when nuclear weapons either fell or we dropped, and four occasions where other munitions struck nuclear warheads. No incidents have been reported since 1981, according to the Guardian. The Defense Ministry said that none of the reported accidents caused radiation leaks. “There has never been an occurrence involving a British nuclear weapon which represented a threat to public safety or to the safety of service personnel,” the ministry said. Frank Barnaby, a nuclear physicist who worked at a British nuclear weapons plant in the 1950s, said the designs of early British nuclear weapons were unsafe and primitive and that the Defense Ministry was “lucky” to have avoided serious accidents, including detonation. “The fact is that the early bombs were not safe until the safety features in the more modern weapons were installed. They were not safe (enough) to be subjected to severe shock,” Barnaby said (Rob Evans, London Guardian, Oct. 13).
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