The current state of conflicts across the world has ratcheted up fears of nuclear war either by design or accident.
Since nuclear weapons were first developed during the Second World War, there have been more than a dozen "close calls". These "perilously close shaves" expose the issues created by the "deeply flawed brains of bipedal apes" having control over "weapons with the power to flatten entire cities", said BBC Future.
The Week takes a look at three of these most hair-raising incidents.
1961: Nukes over North Carolina A fuel leak caused a US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress carrying two hydrogen bombs to lose power over Goldsboro, North Carolina, on 23 January 1961. The aircraft broke up on descent, releasing its payload of two 3.8 megaton Mark 39 warheads – "260 times more powerful than the device that devastated Hiroshima", said The Guardian. Three of the four switches designed to prevent unintentional detonations failed. "It was only that final, highly vulnerable switch that averted calamity."
1962: The Man Who Saved the World In October 1962, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, US Navy destroyers detected a Soviet submarine off the coast of Cuba. They surrounded the vessel and began dropping depth charges intended to force it to the surface, unaware the submarine was equipped with nuclear torpedoes.
Resisting pressure from the captain and two other senior officers, who all pushed for an attack, the submarine's executive officer, Vasily Arkhipov, instead ordered the submarine to surface and identify itself to the US battleships. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr, aide to president John F. Kennedy, later called it "the most dangerous moment in human history".
1983: The (Other) Man Who Saved the World On 26 September 1983, early-warning missile detection systems at a Soviet air force command centre near Moscow reported that multiple intercontinental ballistic missiles from the US were heading for the USSR.
This was a time of high tension between the two nations, following "months of hair-trigger alerts" over airspace, said Air & Space Forces magazine. Fortunately, that evening's watch commander, Lt Col. Stanislav Petrov, suspected a false alarm and persuaded his superior officers to await further confirmation. It was later established that unusual atmospheric conditions had triggered the system's sensors, but without Petrov's intervention, "the world would have been plunged into global nuclear war". |