michaele

Also, only one bomb exploded and it was only the conventional explosives that detonated. This resulted in the permanent contamination of some farmer's field. One other bomb fell on land but did not explode in any sense. Two fell in the Mediterranean. One of which was found right away and the other was found several weeks later. This should help those confused with how it could be possible to have a romantic drama around such an event, since the only casualty was merely the permanent loss of a field for agriculture.

There is no way the amount was 1000 tons of nuclear material since even a aircraft as big as a B-52 could not possibly fly with a load as large as 1000 tons. I don't even think that 1000 pounds of either uranium or plutonium could have been involved. Four hydrogen bombs certainly required less. A more accurate range would have been in the hundreds of pounds as a total for all four bombs together.