The US Dirty Bombed Spain

The year is 1966 and the US are maintaining a constant fleet of B-52 bombers in the skies over Europe; ever ready to strike a nuclear blow to the USSR. It is part of a strategic defence policy which provides nuclear weapons to be in the air and ready to be deployed over continental Europe; an ever present safeguard, basking in the threat of mutually assured destruction. 

The flight paths brought US bombers across the Atlantic, around a lap of the Mediterranean and then back to airbases along the eastern seaboard. A transatlantic flight and loitering along the Iron Curtain required mid-air refuelling and on the 17th of January, 1966 an accident occurred. Unfortunately for the Spanish fishing village of Palomares, this accident occurred directly above them.

On board, were four thermonuclear hydrogen bombs. The B-52 collided with the tanker plane, causing the tanker plane to explode in mid-air killing the crew and the B-52 to disintegrate. The crew bailed out and the remains of the plane showered the village of Palomares with burning wreckage. Three of the four bombs on board fell on land, with one bomb diving into the sea.

Nuclear weapons are made up of two parts. One part is conventional explosive and the other is a nuclear fuel. The conventional explosive must be detonated in a precise manner in order to begin the chain reaction which results in a nuclear explosion. This can only be done by arming the weapons electronically and detonating them with their on-board circuitry. When the bombs landed on the ground, the conventional explosives in one of the bombs detonated. The resulting explosion scattered plutonium fuel into the atmosphere, dispersing radioactive dust over a 2 square-kilometre area.

This sort of weapon is now the biggest fear of United States' homeland security: the use of conventional explosive mixed with radioactive material in a US city. The immediate death toll would be low. The panic, fear and paranoia created would last lifetimes; a "dirty bomb".

One of the unexploded nuclear bombs

The US armed forces began a clean-up operation of the contaminated farmland. For three months, US soldiers and Spanish Civil Guardsmen gathered contaminated soil and collected it in barrels, to be shipped to the Savannah River processing plant in South Carolina. The US servicemen were given protective clothing and regularly screened for radioactivity.  Local townsmen and Spanish Civil Guardsmen who helped in the operation weren't afforded the same protection, going untested and untreated for radiation.




A cultural legacy left behind, a memento for a sunny fishing village previously innocent of the lasting misery of radioactive waste. Now, the village is only noted for its invisible scar and a field surrounded by fencing and radioactive trefoil signs. In a publicity stunt run after the incident, the US ambassador swam in the Mediterranean with the Spanish Minister for Tourism. "If this is radioactivity, I love it", he said, taking a waiting towel as he padded up the beach.

The remaining bombs were recovered and sent back to the United States, where they are on display in a museum in New Mexico, near where the first ever nuclear bombs were created. The US financed the monitoring of the health of Palomares citizens and found that cancer rates remained within ordinary levels. Now, the Spanish department of energy states that they have found new areas of polluted land, and are demanding that the US return to finish the clean-up job that they failed to do in the 1960's.

The town remains in a state of paralysis. Raising the issue in the media causes tourism to fall. The extent of the remedial work is out of their control. It is for the US to act, and to accept responsibility for the injury inflicted on a small seaside village.