U.K. Nuclear accidents and incidents
 

A fascinating read charting a path through the U.K. history of nuclear incidents and accidents, to much to post here, fascinating read…

Having done SST standby with normally about a dozen of us on call I find it rather amusing when they talk about the requirement to set up a 5 to 6 mile initial cordon around an incident involving a leak or fire..

https://www.nuclearinfo.org/wp-conte...port-FINAL.pdf

Where do you find this stuff!:D. Forwarding this to a mate who's ex-MOD Police around these things.

Fascinating read indeed, but the authors have a point to make. Classing a Gannet crashing on the flight deck of a carrier as a “nuclear accident” is pushing things a bit.

back in the '80's and early 90's you'd often see convoys heading to/from Burghfield - and on several occasions broken down vehicles surrounded by a large guard of troops.

But really there is not much of an alternative

As an ex Member of the teams that looked after the training and storage of these rounds in the UK on RAF bases there would never have been a live weapon dropped during any loading practices ….the incident in RAF Germany of a weapon falling off its trolley during movement is also not fully factually correct….

They always put up a Puma out of Odiham (about 10 miles south of Burghfield) to 'shadow' these SST movements or alternatively keep one on 'standby' duty.
Whenever there was an 'exercise' deploying GLCMs out of Greenham Common, it seemed the Army Air Corps would cover the task.

I was there for that one.. :)

can you educate us for when I read the document.

I was on one of the Squadrons that used to Stand up on Q with them, when it happened it spread around the Squadrons like wildfire, all be it in hushed tones, obviously it never spread throughout the station as most would be unaware as to what we actually had on the Station or sometimes on the Squadrons..

I was once asked what we did over there by a fireman I knew, who arrived at the same time and shared transit accomodation early in my tour, I simply said we had aircraft on 24hr alert armed with 1000 pounders in case the hooter went off.

He was happy with that, he incidentally queried it because as a fireman they were told to fight any fire on site until their death basically and he couldn't understand why, so even most of the fire service didn't know.

Board of inquiry into the incident.

https://webarchive.nationalarchives....tInGermany.htm

I can remember there was a worry about the Jags sitting in Squadron HAS's armed with 1000 pounders over night and the security aspect after it was found you could cut the padlocks with a bolt cutter on the wicker? doors.. changes were made and super extra strong padlocks were fitted made from Kryptonite or similar... fast forward a few weeks and the fire alarm goes off in one of our HAS with a Jag and 1000 Pounders inside, Trumpton dispatch their finest engines to the said HAS and attempt to cut the padlock off to gain access...
Not a chance, Trumpton then dispatch a fire engine with lights a blazing back across the station and to the guardroom to book the keys out, then head back to the Squadron to unlock the door.... Luckily it was a false alarm. Short order, Kryptonite padlocks binned and normal padlocks refitted.

..

I was on 230 at Gut in the 80s and recall being told that 'Op XYZ' was the highest priority tasking we had in peacetime. Full NBC kit, crew and 'ground party' at or near the a/c. Obviously nobody could confirm or deny why I was on standby!:ok:

CG

I wasted too much of my life sitting in the back of a Puma in Germany along with an interpreter. a medic, a fireman in charge of the biggest fire extinguisher I had ever seen and sundry others waiting for something to not happen, I swear we were stood to before the armourers had even got out of bed in the UK, let alone loaded it and they were probably tucked up in bed again before we were stood down. One of the SST asked what I would do if we really had to deal with an incident, I told him if I was lucky I might get to make tea for the VSO that would undoubtedly turn up to get his picture in the papers, but I reckoned the locals would be dealing with it long before they realised what it was they were dealing with, when we pitched up with out fire extinguisher.

Ninthace, I've told you million times not to exaggerate!:ok: When were you at it?

CG

86 to 89

In fact the whole section entitled "Accidents Involving Nuclear Capable Royal Navy Warships" looks like a load of old tosh.

They did do a nuke shuffle on the way to the Falklands I believe, see

https://falklandstimeline.files.word...task-force.pdf

As I moved from the St Mawgan Nimrod fleet to the storage depot that took in the Navy Weapons …I was able to ask some questions -in that each WE 177 had its own service history …I was told that the storage facility had received some ex Op Corporate rounds in that showed some heat damage …but they were considered safe to move ….and I did the AWRE weapons safety course …..and they came back into service …the real problem the RAF had was ….targets known but not enough on site rounds immediately available for the targets allocated ….
on my last tour the decision was made that the storage area should be a secure area but the interested Officers should be briefed on site as to its role by an on site visit ..heavily guarded by live armed RAFP who were very capable ….and we did very regular 28 day no notice fire drills with the RAF fireman…..it did work …

Met was asked by SASO HQRAFG c. 1995 about the what if ...................

transport aircraft carring a special back to UK crashes and burns in Belgium or Netherands.

Very interesting calculations which were partly beyond me so the Met HQ boffins were involved on a very "just as a theoretical" basis.

Any resulting heat-driven plume might have been very embarrassing in a Westerly.

Purely theoretical of course.

None nukes, the VC10 was tasked with a replenishment flight to RAFG carrying 1000 pounders etc.
As the crew were going through their start up checks the young loadmaster arrived at the cockpit with a fistful of remove before flight safety pins asking where they were suppose to stow them…. Yup you have guessed it, all removed from the bombs stowed in the cabin… flight cancelled, loady briefed on the safety pins and armourers despatched to make the load safe again..

Unbelieveable; you couldn't make it up could you?

. Possibly not for the UK allocated Sqns but those "overseas" certainly had enough - I had more than required.