Icy Search for Hot Debris

On the frigid ice sheet 7 miles from Thule, Greenland, last week, members of an Air Force recovery team continued their hunt for H-bomb parts and contaminated debris scattered by the crash of a B-52 SAC bomber last month. Searchers armed with scintillation counters came upon chunks of wreckage that caused their instruments to go off scale at their maximum 2 million counts-per-minute rate--indicating a level that was above the highest count recorded at the Palomares, Spain, crash site in 1966. To minimize the threat that the radiation poses to plant and animal life, the recovery operation will continue until as much as possible of the 200 Ibs. of fissionable trigger material in the four shattered H-bombs and the contaminated pieces of the B-52 have been found.

Living in 5-ft.-high igloos and plywood huts that are frozen--not nailed -- together, the searchers often work in 30DEG F. temperatures and 35 m.p.h. winds that combine to produce an equivalent of -100DEG F. cold. Frostbite is a constant hazard, and flashlight batteries freeze into uselessness after ten minutes of exposure. Men returning from the crash site must be checked for radiation, have their garments vacuumed and their noses swabbed with cotton dabbed in alcohol--all part of the decontamination process.

Core Samples. SAC Major General Richard Hunziker's team--now grown to some 400 men--is using surveyors' transits to mark off a grid pattern around the crash site. As each piece of wreckage is found, it is plotted on the grid to establish the debris pattern that resulted from the crash, and detonation of the conventional explosives in each bomb. The collected debris will be shipped to the U.S. .in sealed containers for burial. The freight will be substantial. "Every piece of debris we've found so far is contaminated," reports Hunziker.

To determine if any of the plutonium-uranium 235 trigger or contaminated wreckage melted into--or even through--the 9-ft.-thick ice in the fire that followed the crash, technicians have taken ice-core samples that will be an alyzed for radioactivity in U.S. and Danish labs. If it is determined that any substantial amount of hot debris penetrated the ice and sank to the bottom of Baffin Bay, 800 ft. below, deep-diving submersibles (TIME, Jan. 19) may be called in to recover it, just as they were in the Palomares crash.

The Danish government has sent in its own team of scientists to study possible contamination of algae, fish, seals and walruses in the area, and to guard against the possibility of radioactive particles in products destined for human consumption. A Greenland hunter has been assigned to hunt for seal and walrus specimens; they will be examined for radioactivity by scientists who will later obtain more specimens for a comparison that will determine if animal life is gradually picking up radioactive contamination. Other Danish scientists will trace the possible route of contamination once the midsummer thaw starts and water from the melting ice begins flowing into Baffin Bay.

Slowed by extreme cold and winter storms, the recovery team can only look forward to months of uncomfortable living and working on the desolate expanse of ice. Asked by his wife when he would return from Greenland, Major General Hunziker replied: "Probably not before the roses bloom in Omaha."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.