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| K-219 |
At 5:30 AM, on October 3, 1986, an explosion occurred in the sixth missile silo of Soviet submarine K-219. It had been undertaking a standard nuclear deterrence patrol in the Atlantic Ocean, a thousand miles from the United States coast. K-219 was carrying a total of thirty-four one-megaton nuclear warheads, equivalent to about 2,300 times the explosion that destroyed Hiroshima.
The explosion killed two sailors and caused toxic gas to be released, killing a third soon after. The hull was breached by the explosion, and the submarine sank from 40 meters to over 300, well below the standard operating depth.
By any standards, this was very, very bad.
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| Not a good thing to lose |
Although the nuclear reactor should have shut down automatically, they did not. Two soldiers consecutively volunteered to shut down the reactor. The first, Lieutenant Nikolai Belikov, ran out of oxygen before managing to shut it down. The second, Sergei Preminin, managed to successfully shut down the reactor. Unfortunately, a fire had broken out and he was unable to open the door to the compartment. He died of asphyxiation in the reactor compartment and was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Star for bravery.
The submarine eventually sank, with most of its crew escaping. Its 34 nuclear warheads sank to the depths with it.
Two years later, the USSR sent submersibles down to locate the K-219. When they arrived, they found something strange.
The missile silos, which had contained enough destructive power to level 2,300 Hiroshimas, were empty. Empty—and there were tool marks indicating that they had been broken into, and the warheads carried off. By who? Nobody knows.
3 comments:
Because of the cold war, there must have been many accidents where nuclear warheads may have endangered the lives of millions. There was tension not only between the two superpowers, but also in neighboring and allied countries.
Interesting summary. There's no telling how many total warheads were lost (especially from the USSR) and what effects they might have had, especially on the environment.
Since the boats were only one thousand miles off the coast of the US, they obviously sound like an obvious suspect; however, it is grotesque to think that it could've not been the government who took the warheads.
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