Thar she blows!

OK, maybe that headline is a tad overblown given the size of Texas, but given most people have forgotten we have nukes sitting around the country it’s rather disconcerting that one could have accidentally blown up. Or that nuke bomb techs being overworked!

Mishap in dismantling nuclear warhead

A watchdog group charges a nuclear warhead nearly exploded in Texas when it was being dismantled at the government’s Pantex facility near Amarillo.

The Project on Government Oversight says it has been told by knowledgeable experts that the warhead nearly detonated in 2005 because an unsafe amount of pressure was applied while it was being disassembled, The Austin American-Statesman reports.

The U.S. Energy Department fined the plant’s operators $110,000 last month.

An investigator for Project on Government Oversight says the weapon involved was a W-56 warhead with 100 times the destructive power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The watchdog group says the problem was caused in part by technicians at the plant being required to work up to 72 hours each week.

They released an anonymous letter, reportedly sent by Pantex employees, warning that long hours and efforts to increase output were causing dangerous conditions at the plant.

A spokesperson for the Energy Department declined to respond to safety complaints in the letter.



  1. doug says:

    wow, the technicians who disassemble atom bombs have to work almost as many hours as the residents who work on human beings in hospitals! good thing both jobs have a wide margin of error, without serious consequences for mistakes.

  2. Lindsay says:

    Bummer, nearly got rid of Texas. Better luck next time folks.

  3. Hugh Janus says:

    Could you imagine the loss of Mexicans that would have occurred? Oh the humanity-it would have screwed up lawn care for eons.

  4. Kent Goldings says:

    I’m I upset that Texas came so close to being nuked. Or I’m I upset that we came so close to Texas being nuked and didn’t.

  5. clockwork oranjaboom says:

    No doubt the Pantex administrator that instituted a reduction in force cost savings initiative was heralded as a ‘brilliant’ and ‘highly effective’ manager and has since move to another area where the simple minded mantra of ‘doing more with less’ has not been fully realized. Perhaps NASA.

  6. Dallas says:

    Glad Amarillo is a ways out from Dallas.

    Bush and his pentagon thugs are probably bummed out that a good reason to invade Iran *and* North Korea, together, just slipped away.

    I guess Haliburton will not have a VERY Merry Xmas in 2008
    Drats!

  7. Improbus says:

    North Korea is nothing. We are our own worst enemy. I know … let’s have a War on America.

  8. moss says:

    Pantex’ record over the years is nothing to be proud of. And Amarillo? Well, I can think of parts of Texas I would miss they were vaporized. Amarillo ain’t one of them.

  9. Floyd says:

    #9: Well, the Big Texan is supposed to be a very good steakhouse, in spite of the billboard hype. That, and the Cadillac Ranch are about all there is to visit in Amarillo.

  10. malren says:

    Wow, such lovely, progressive, human comments here on this thread.

    I’m not sure what’s worse: the comments themselves, or that fact that those making them actually consider themselves better than the people upon whom they are wishing death.

  11. RTaylor says:

    #8, that reminds me of the old Pogo comic strip, ” I have seen the enemy, and it is us”.

  12. Mr. Fusion says:

    #11, Put that down to the reputation that the number 1 citizen of Texas. He has smeared most Texans by his mere presence.

    I am really surprised that you don’t favor the elimination of obvious liberals that work at the Pantex facility.

  13. Jägermeister says:

    Raise your hands if you think Iran and/or North Korea would have been nuked in retaliation…

  14. Jägermeister says:

    #7

    Oops… missed your comment. 🙁

  15. PMitchell says:

    It didnt nearly happen it didnt even think about nearly happening. The operator of Pantex was fined for improperly handling the high explosive charge. The nuke could not have gone off period it is impossible to accidentally set off a nuke especially the w-56 which is a thermonuclear war head ( h bomb) it takes a properly executed fission bomb to trigger a fusion reaction and it is all a very complicated chain of events that can not happen by accident ( these bombs have fallen off of plains and have not detonated) the reporting group is an ANTI NUKE GROUP WHO LIES, AND THE REPORTER WHO TOOK THIS STORY AND RAN WITH IT SHOULD BE REPRIMANDED FOR NOT CHECKING HIS STORY OUT . Pantex is a mess and probably a superfund site but this article id B.S.
    the bombs are disassembled in bunkers underground and if the high explosives had detonated it would have been contained and would simply been the equivalent of a dirty bomb but in a hole deep undergrond

    BAD STORY

  16. BertDawg says:

    #16 – Thank you. # 1-15 Sheeesh!

  17. Jägermeister says:

    #17 – Sheeesh

    kebab…

    Seriously… we were all commenting on the story… 😉

  18. Too late says:

    #8… Hasnt that already happenned???

  19. GregA says:

    #16,

    The government told you Nuke bombs can’t have accidents and you believe anything they say about this most secret government program?

    Bwhahahahaha!!!! Sucker!

    Ho ho ho, Ahhhhhh hahahahaha

    Hooo oohohohohhoho bwhahahahahahahahah!

  20. PMitchell says:

    No it wasnt the govt ,it was the engineers who build them and a simple search of the internet ,

    Bwhahahahaha!!!! Sucker!

    Ho ho ho, Ahhhhhh hahahahaha

    Hooo oohohohohhoho bwhahahahahahahahah!

    try using goolge moron or should I say man of the year
    sheesh

  21. Odyssey67 says:

    PMitchell is right – when it comes to any nuclear device, especially an H-bomb, ‘setting off’ and ‘accidentally’ are pretty much a contradiction in terms. While there may be some ‘Chaplin-esque’ way of bringing it about, the odds are about 100x better that all of the posters here will hit the Powerball. Tomorrow.

    GregA – if your definition of “accident” is a release of radiation, losing parts, or having the (conventional) high explosive trigger blow, then your scepticism is fine. But believing the government regarding a full out explosion-type accident isn’t being a sucker – it’s being educated. If a thermonuclear warhead goes off in this country – or anywhere – it’s because someone INTENDED it to.

    Just an FYI to anyone interested: The W59 was the warhead of the old Titan II ICBMs, and had a destructive power of a little over 10 megatons. While the later Minutemans and Peacekeeper/MXs had more warheads in total, and those warheads were more accurate too, they were also much less powerful than a W59 – 1 megaton or (usually) less. For comparison’s sake, the WWII A-bombs (which immediately killed about 100,000 people combined) were 13.5 & 22 kilotons. The Russians had even bigger warheads, but insofar as the US arsenal, I believe the W59 was the largest we ever put on a missile.

  22. Axtell says:

    Damn, too bad texas wasn’t wiped off the map, would have instantly raised the collective IQ of this country substantially.

  23. edwinrogers says:

    Didn’t the Brits have a similar close call in the 60’s? They stored too many RAF nukes in close confines, and the nutron flux in the room approached fission threshhold. That was recently unearthed under the freedom of information act and published in New Scientist, I unreliably recall.

  24. PMitchell says:

    That was not nice 23
    I am from Texas and my mommy says I are the smartest husband she has ever had

  25. GregA says:

    Odyssey67,

    You are a sucker as well. I am sorry, but you don’t have the first clue how nuclear bombs work. Or will you go on the record as having worked in a nuclear bomb factory or labratory? If not, then your speculation on the inner operations of a nuclear bombs are just that, speculations.

    I happen to know, with first hand experience, that the encyclopedia version of the operations of nuclear bombs, are little better than the directions you find in the anarchists cook book. Which is to say, worthless. It is government misinformation designed to cause would be terrorists to build dirty bombs rather than atom bombs.

    Unless you can confirm differently?

  26. Angel H. Wong says:

    With all the inbreeding no one will notice the difference 😉

  27. Unspeakable says:

    I’d just like to say that when it comes to trusting the government to give out accurate info on nukes, we should all remember the days of duck and cover. That was a lie, it would not save your life and it was just stupid. So I would take all government reassurances with a grain of salt after that.

  28. ECA says:

    What is the location of this plant to Any of the Local Towns and cities??

  29. TooTallSlim says:

    Look on Google Maps for the town of Panhandle in Carson County, TX. Pantex is just west of the town on the way to Amarillo.

  30. tallwookie says:

    Guess where #16 works…

    LOL #4 – too true, too true – also affected: drive in car washes, temp staffing agencies, orchards & farms.


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