The Day We Lost the H-Bomb: Cold War, Hot Nukes, and the Worst Nuclear Weapons Disaster in History

Refueling any plane requires the pilot to make continuous, minute adjustments. Accordingly, refueling can be one of the toughest things B-52 pilots have to do. They rely on little tricks to align themselves correctly with the tanker. For instance, when a small black UHF antenna on the tanker's belly appears to line up with a certain white stripe, the bomber is at the proper 30-degree angle for receiving fuel. Once connected, if the bomber's copilot can see the boomer's face through a certain high corner window, the B-52 is flying safely inside the envelope.

Throughout the approach and refueling, Messinger would have to keep his right hand on the eight throttles and his left hand on the yoke, both moving constantly. He couldn't take his eyes off the tanker plane for a second. Because of the danger, both crews wore full safety gear — helmet, gloves, and parachute — for the entire rendezvous and fuel exchange. The whole process normally took thirty minutes to an hour. Even with two decades of flying under his belt, Messinger still found refueling a sticky business. By the end, he was usually drenched with sweat.

Pilots usually refer to the B-52 by the nickname “BUFF.” Depending on whom you ask, this stands for either “Big Ugly Flying Fellow” or, less politely, “Big Ugly Fat Fucker.” The B-52 entered the fleet in 1955, underwent multiple modifications, and by 1966 was the workhorse of SAC's bomber force. The “ugly” bit notwithstanding, most pilots regard the BUFF with fond nostalgia — a dependable old bird that always got you home.

A B-52 is the size of a Boeing 707, with elegant wings, tapered and graceful as a hawk's, stretching ninety feet from top to tip. When the plane is sitting on the ground, the wings, laden with fuel tanks and four engines each, droop almost to the tarmac. They would drag on the ground if not for the small wheels on each wingtip. Once the plane gets moving, the wings rise. With a seventeen-foot deflection in either direction, they can move seventeen feet upward and seventeen feet downward.

As a result, the wings can “flap” up to thirty-four feet during turbulence.

Saving weight was a major issue for the B-52. When they built the plane, pilots say, they crammed it full of gas and bombs and threw some people in as an afterthought. The G model that Wendorf and Messinger flew had a takeoff weight of 488,000 pounds, almost 40,000 pounds heavier than previous models, even though the designers had lopped nearly eight feet off the horizontal stabilizer.

Yet the engines offered barely more thrust. During the Cold War, SAC stuffed the G models so full of bombs and fuel that they usually topped the takeoff weight sitting in the chocks. To help the plane take off, engineers devised a technique called “water augmenting” the engines, pushing the limits of technology in pursuit of SAC's Cold War mission.

During takeoff, B-52 pilots injected 10,000 pounds of water into the back sections of each engine.

The water cooled the engine blades, allowing them to spin faster without melting or disintegrating.

The water also added mass to the exhaust, creating more lift. Often the B-52 remained well above its takeoff weight as it zoomed down the runway. But during the trip, the plane consumed 4,000 to 5,000 pounds of fuel and 10,000 pounds of water. That weight loss, along with the extra 2,550

pounds of thrust, allowed the bomber to crawl into the sky.

The water-augmented thrust lasted exactly ten seconds. When the airborne plane reached about a thousand feet, it lost power and took a sudden dip. The dip usually caused utter panic in first-time pilots, much to the amusement of old-timers.

At 10:20 a.m. on January 17, 1966, the sky in Saddle Rock shone a bright, clear blue. The bomber and tanker cut their speed and began their approach. In the B-52, Messinger sat on the left, in the pilot's seat; Wendorf sat in the copilot's seat to the right. Rooney was downstairs reading. The B-52

was 31,000 feet in the air and about 150 feet below the tanker when Messinger sensed that something was wrong.

“We came in behind the tanker. We were a little bit fast, and we started to overrun him a little bit,” Messinger said. “There is a procedure they have in refueling where if the boom operator feels that you're getting too close and it's a dangerous situation, he will call, ‘Breakaway, breakaway, breakaway.’” Messinger remembers overrunning the tanker a “wee bit” but nothing serious. “There was no call for breakaway, so we didn't see anything dangerous about the situation,” he said. “But all of a sudden, all hell seemed to break loose.”

What happened next is disputed. Wendorf says he still had his eye on the tanker when he heard an explosion coming from the back of the B-52. The plane pitched down and to the left. Fire and debris shot into the cockpit, and the plane began to come apart.