Stanislov Petrov...and Don Cullins

[Targan]

That is a full-on story. When you hear little gems like that you have to consider the possibility that it happened just as described. A fully fuelled Atlas ICBM would make one hell of a bang if it exploded in the silo. Dang.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

My dad's "H-Bomb" story was funnier: he was standing flight line guard when a few gallons of cold fuel splashed onto the runway while refueling an armed B47. Foof, a 3-4 diameter puddle of fire. Couple of squirts from an extinguisher and its out.

Except...

one of the other flight line guards observing this immediately determined that a fire underneath a hydrogen-bomb armed aircraft meant doomsday, so he:

- abandoned his weapon
- abandoned his post
- commandeered a jeep
...and was stopped at the outer/Spanish gate (Torrejon AFB is/was a reservation inside a Spanish AF base, so you had the outer perimeter then an inner perimeter surrounding the US base) going hellbent for leather. When they asked the guy why he ran he said "I was trying to get away! There's h-bombs on that plane!"...as if puttering out to metro Madrid would have saved him...

Mind you, the fire was out in the space of about 30 seconds.

Sometimes you've gotta wonder what's going on inside peoples' heads.

Although to be fair given how close we've come to actual near-accidental nuclear detonations (accidental war aside), I can kinda see where he was coming from.

[Adm.Lee]

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

My dad's "H-Bomb" story was funnier: he was standing flight line guard when a few gallons of cold fuel splashed onto the runway while refueling an armed B47. Foof, a 3-4 diameter puddle of fire. Couple of squirts from an extinguisher and its out.

I read a story just a few months ago from an SP who also stood guard near armed B52s-- he had to walk around them regularly. One day, the plane's tailguns started tracking him as he walked. Every time. No one in the plane, and the power should have been off, but the radar picked him up and followed. his. every. move.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Originally Posted by Targan

That is a full-on story. When you hear little gems like that you have to consider the possibility that it happened just as described. A fully fuelled Atlas ICBM would make one hell of a bang if it exploded in the silo. Dang.

This (which I distinctly recall hearing about on the news when I was a kid) is in all likelihood what would have happened.