AFRP 122-1 JAN FEB MAR 1970 NO 1 VOLUME6 • •-- - I ' _i I I • - - a __ _ 'E'I -_ ••• • t 1 • - • • • • ' • T t olopal mp ismneJ'i ' I 1 - • -- ii • • i '9' I • Ji - ' sibilfJI ' 7N naitiitjfy'madfFtnore1 'f'h- '• - d gan Wao il_gvelopmen_t -- · - 'thre nly 1verit j1_thll ty liD- _ · 1 · _-_ - wl'iiiil- _ l -a1_ - tests' · nottiing-• - - - -- - q _ to'· exerf ·e xce ·oa• and ·u -· vtse i ie - - _ vening disaster -_ ··--- 'fr Our nuclear weapons can be activated only after cr t sequence of actions is followed Because of their awesome cYestructive power however any accident involving them rightfully receives maximum attention On January 21 1968 a B-52 bomber carrying four nuclear weapons crashed on the sea ice off the shore of Thu n land Both the aircraft and the weapons disintegrated on impact There was of course no nuclear explosion since the design of the weapons precluded any nuclear reaction Nevertheless limited contamination resulting from the dispersed radioactive material from the weapons had to be controlled and removed as did the aircraft debris A major disaster was turned into a classic example of international cooperation at governmental scientific and local levels During the ensuing months the Danes and Americans at Thule provided a striking example of international teamwork The seemingly insurmountable task of recovering and removing all traces of the accident proves again that - - truth may be stranger than fiction-and fully as exciting This issue has been chosen to provide a amdensed but complete summary of details of this true modem saga of internation -cooperation-by the people who ' were there _ I in a l · • MAJ GEN RICHARD O HUNZIKER USAF Retired 'OLC lE 65 PART 2 SPECIAL EDITION Al- RP 122--1 JAN FEB MAR 1970 NO 1 DEPARTMENT Of THE AIR FORCE THE INSPECTOR GENERAL USAF LT GEN S W WELLS The Inspector General USAF CONTENTS The Fli9ht of HOBO 28 2 The Thule Affair 5 The Evaluation of Possible Hazards 8 MAJ GEN EDWARD M NICHOLS JR Deputy Inspector General For Inspection and Safety USAF COL BRITI S MAY Director of Nuclear Safety USAF LT COL JAMES E JONES Chief Education Training Advisory Group The Commander's Point of View 12 Host Base Support 25 Crested Ice Public Affairs Program 32 Technical and Laboratory Support 36 Danish Group Scientific Investigations 42 G E TORRES Editor Radloloalcal Monitoring 45 Fldler on the Roof of the World 52 USAF Radioloaical Health Laboratory Support 54 Investigations and Evaluations of Contamination Levels 57 Poley Statament Ecoloatcal Background 64 USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY is published to assist Commanders Nuclear Safety Officers Flight Surgeons Security Police personnel and others having nuclear safety responsl· bilitles in establishing and implementing an aggressive effective Nuclear Safety Pro1ram Ecological Survey 70 Radio-Ecological Investigations 74 Danish H alth Physicistst Activities 80 HELEN B TRACY Associate Editor OLIVER R SMITH Art Director · The contents of this publication are infer• matlonal and not to be construed as directive Written permission must be obtained before material may be republished by other than Department of Defense organizations Contribution of articles photographs and items of interest is encouraged The Editor reserves the right to make any editorial change in manuscripts which he believes will improve the material without altering the intended meaning Direct communication is authorized with The Editor USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY Direc· torate of Nuclear Safety AFINST Kirtland AFB NM 87117 Ice Operations ' '- 82 Ice lnvestiptlons 84 Removal of Debris from Thule 87 North Star Bay Oceanography 91 EPILOGUE- -From the Danish Point of View 96 EPILOGUE-From the American Point of View 97 I • '•4 I HQ STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND Offutt AFB Nebraska SUDDEN ANO UNEXPECTED DANGER The Flight odor of burning rubber With fumes growing stronger in the cabin the aircraft commander instructed the crew to go on oxygen and attempt to locate the source of danger The copilot repositioned the air bleed selector back to the normal position N 21 January 1968 HOBO 28 took off on a 24 hour Oairborne alert mission At the time of lift-off there was every indication that the mission would be completed successfully All required maintenance and aircraft inspections had been performed A later examination of all aircraft records and related documents revealed no signs of maintenance malpractices or system discrepancies that would bring on an accident The crew of HOBO 28 was an integrated combat-ready crew that is its members had continually trained and flown together as a unit An extra pilot was aboard to insure ·ndequate rest for the principal crew FoijoJ1 i t th' Qj ti L ' nev_ent fully first IIHl llf - __ I ' - - • • mateiy hours into1ffe•tb - - · -· later the aircraft co --- _ e assigned copilot to begin ' - r pilot into the copik ' ent-'l unobtrusive way started a - - ·events that the destruction of HOB ' The cabin tetl pe£8ture became t _c eol for comfort at the flig_ht-plaiu i11 altitude In l l¼orclance with approv -- ubstitute copilot selected the eme r is_ lt-h position to provide cabin air and rotateii the temperature rheostat to the position of maximum lieu This action provided a source of very hot air for cabin temperature contro After making the initial setting the copilot began decreasing the rheostat setting as crew members on station rep tted they were getting too hot Then a few miles south of a northern air base one crew member detected and reported the IN-FLIGHT FIRE the navigator searched the lower crew compartment once without finding where the smoke and fumes were coming from Ordered to make a second search of the same area he moved a metal box and located the fire Hurriedly he alerted the crew and started using a fire extinguisher on the names The pilot notified the ground station of a £ire in the cab n a ted auth rity f r an ltl dia 4 _de n an · · ncy land1 g at Tiiul I' ' Base- -'rwo minti '• · e began · the descenC D stairs the 0 Jeto J' ' ii •c-■Afl IM· c Crash path prior to impact on the ice 2 JAN FEB MAR 1970 mander aJld his staff and close cooperation with Danish fact that they rose to the occasion and met the challenge officials ancf soientists at all levels of government who with professionalism worked hand-in- hand with American counterparts in SAC's dynamic forces were brought to bear and conresolving the post-accident problems sequently have reaped the praise and respect of the free In mid-February American and Danish scientists world for the professional and thorough manner in government representatives and Air Force officials rewhich they performed search and recovery operations viewed the situation at meetings held in Cope h The Aerospace Defense Command and its 4683rd Air and jointly planned the course of future acpoiu S e Base Group took charge upon SAC's departure from there was no evidence of any nuclear conttlt o _ m Thule rch and served as a holding force coordithe destruction of the weapons involv accident nati i 1 f fpporting further cleanup removal and efforts were directed at removal of alglta itting P ·tech al l l operations As host to many hundreds ticulates and aircraft fuels w ich coul f ptimi fi - - _of · _ · ◄ i ns scientists Joreign diplomats and Thule coastal areas after sprmg br f - fte-_-- - Aero space Defense _Command A month later a follow-up meeting• J ilf le p itiil jicjit ' cre3l mage of the Air Force to the two govemment grnup tM ti ifln WuliiilgtQlf - _ • and further refinements lo clean p ch-·- T i- · -·_ _ r· Directoraffi · w apons of the Air Force ance were promulgated and furn _ Air Force _ logis ics Command was· sked· with the monumental With SAC com_p leting its ar - '' ' p- f af ly remov ng all crash debris for disposition ations further actions were dire __ _ 1ef_ 1' Umted States The work was accomplished with of Staff Air Force Logistics Com -·- · - • l' f le - '4-dispatch and technical precision Directorate of Special Weapon _n aJtdThe Atomic Energy Commission's experts in the mented their assigned task of retnDWg ·atl ll d_ · field of handling and disposing of radioactive waste debris from Danish territory The Aen8pace- materials closed out the episode when they completed Command _ as the o rating _com and the debris proc ssing _ Base provided security radiological and -c rash scene · From the viewpoint of the Headquarters United monitoring and performed a myriad ot'other support States Air Force Broken Arrow Control Group on which tasks required to meet agreement requirements between I was privileged to serve it was clearly evident that the the United States and Denmark Scientists and technidisaster preparedness plans of the Department of the cians from many Air Force units and other services Air Force and Government were dynamic workable assisted in accomplishing these tasks All were directed and manageable Valid and valuable lessons were supported and reported through the Broken Arrow learned Control Group acting as the agent for the Chief of Staff Under the added pressure of international public The list of individuals offices agencies and departinterest Project Crested Ice was a meticulous effort that ments who worked together as a team would fill the severely tested the Air Force's ability to cope with a com• pages of a sizeable book Countless unsung participants plex and costly situation many of whom performed in a prodigious manner with In the final analysis the record will show - Mission little or no recognition can rightfully take pride in the completed in an outstanding manner ea f 1 · for _ nan Personnel of the Materiel Seclion in adlon USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY Mr Zinglenen briefing General Hvnziker and llaff 7 APR MAY JUN 1969 EVALUATION OF POSSIBLE HAZARDS THE DANISH THULE COMMITTEE l Considerations by the Danish authorities re• garding the evaluation of possible hazards to the population in the Thule district and the 1 1'6· cautions to be taken Thule the Honorable Dr Carl Walske Assistant to the U S Secretary of Defense Atomic Energy arrived in Copenhagen to brief the Danish authorities on the in• formation available on the accident On 25 January Dr Walske met with the team of Danish scientists and other officials from the Danish authorities involved in order to pass on technical information on the accident which might be useful for the group's investigations in the Thule area During this meeting the first Danish•American discussions took place concerning the extent of and type of risks which might be connected with the spreading of radioactivity in the area The discussions were hued on the supposition that the plutonium contaminat icjri which hasfiJeen demon• strated could have been the result of ·the bplosion of the conventional high -exp1 ive stnToundiDg the nuclear material in the bom jn _oiie ar more of the bo rqba during e-ailH the - uc ac the spread of fissionable the ' N it was clear that nuclear re CQUla not ba 5een brought about by the crash ' - i _ The Danish Scieniffi'itcfmup left lot Thule on the the afternoon of 25 Jan During tliitl me following their arrival they carriecb i a aeri_ «investigations and operations in Thule parallel to and _-Supplement to the American work As will b6 evident iliere wu close coordination in the steps t en by the Danish and American authorities On the basis of the information sent out from Thule the Danish authorities in Copenhagen were able to continu to follow and evaluate developments accurately iately after the cruh preparations were s to enable Danish measuring operations to · ce As more information became available t h p ations were expanded and intensified _ · -'- _ Some 2 weeks later whe initilll Danish invetei· gallons and measurements in Thule had been completed IUld when the tjpr' and extent of the work wh lCh had been begun by the American group had been ucm• teined nearly all of the Danish scientists returned 10 Copenhagen Replacements' were sent out - howwwr and during the following months there was alway •• least one Riso staff member in Thuie Thus when the D • - w 9 _the American initial investigations had - n carried out at and arou ad the crash area meetings were set for 15 and 16 Femiaar to be held in Copenhagen between Danish officials and an American delegation under the leadership ol Dr THE essence of the information received by the Danish authorities in Copenhagen after the S 52 airplane crash near Thule on 21 January 1968 was that an American military bomber carrying nuclear weapons had crashed on Danish territory Reliable information concerning what had happened to the aircraft and to its cargo of nuclear weapons was not available at that time but it was known that within a certain area near the site of the crash mall amounts of radioactivity had been detected - In order to evaluate possible hazards to the population in the Thule district and the precautions to be taken a close coordination was established between the National Health Service the Atomic Energy Commis sion both having certain administrative responsibilities for problems which might arise in connection with the use of atomic energy and radiation and-of coursethe Ministry for Greenland The initial considerations as to what the Danish authorities should do towards establishing and dealing with possible risks in connection with the accident took place in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs on 22 and 23 January During these discussio u _ - fense in additi n ib uPH - • - -•- - a - - J -- - P5- J · i · · J · 4 so - rep - ◄ 1 - As early ·o 22 January in the course of ditcussions it wu that a »-tlib S c i e n s d be sent to Tlml _ i m rq •Jx • repl cieiBifves nf theDanish t ¥ ations initiated lbia pmp-WU to establish aJUI ' · - and fongrangeeffec tsofi · - - local population and then take the neoemiy measures 11ie position of the Daailh ' Scientilk- rou - -- bDdi · iltii the fint few days and after 29 Jtfflil W group ' V GJJllllded wi JIIPll'llf Daiali- eilii i- i well u itt ol iecla q i a r e desailMci ia-'Cinail in the contriLutioa l y the1 o t- Danish tjfic Group Professor 1ft Jtl JC¥eh 4 oisb Sc ien p Investigations ancttlfe following Danish contnlniUom Before the departure of the group which was delayed by 1 day because of landing difficulties in _J · 8 JAN FB MAI 1'70 - Walske together with a group of experts both Danish and American who had participated in the investigations in Thule Previous to the Danish-American meetings Danish officials and scientists had met to evaluate the investigations and evidence in connection with the accident and to discuss measures required with regard to further investigations clean-up of the area etc At the meetings on 15 and 16 February the information gathered by both sides was reviewed and discussed both in meetings between all participants as well as in smaller working parties appointed to deal with particular aspects Aside from an exchange of views and increased knowledge concerning the extent and nature of the accident the meetings resulted in detailed agreements as to what measures should be undertaken with regard to cleaning up the area where plutonium contamination had occurred Agreements were also reached concerning further measurements and investigations on the land areas surroun the crash it ¥ wellau ontinued su ill f i ca '8 - P 1se ti ·- e m l •-t a d' t-dltt 11 further_ ta ogtp -rike place mn I f tions or_extensions of the operati_ons - - On if new informtti n'or ev•luati n- -shouf Jro Y such _ operauons desirable Furthe ¥ lo b waJ amct · that in the CQIU'3e-of the c ontinued w or ti should be maintained -be een the parti e - i 1' press release of 16 Febt flry issued after U e' m fiiip follows ' · · i' - - Scientists fiom_ Denmark and the Onjted have n ng f r the p a- 2 da 1 sions of the technican iues tions sing-·6 ' _ cr• •t Th -6 reenlaito 'lll tinp a ntin th€ ctose coof 'ratioit-- which - has - xiated a time of the crash Scientists 6f bot-l natiendt worked together at the scene of the crash and participated in the gathering of scientific evidence The scientists reviewed the considerable progress which has been made at the site in collecting aircraft and weapons parts Contaminated material will be removed from Greenland They also assessed thP extent to which radioactivity was released It was agreed that under present conditions •the radioactivity spread in the area is not a hazard to people or biological species nor is any hazard foreseen for the future Nevertheless an effort will be made to remove the main part of the radioactivity which is on the ice The conclusions of the scientists regarding the absence of hazards to the biosphere will continue to be examin d in detail Further supporting evidence will be accumulated through an extensive program of data gathering During the first phases of the Thule case the orga• nization and anying out of the Danish investigations and operations as well as the coordination between the - 0 USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY 9 Danish authm-ities involved had taken place to some extent in an improvised way After the DanishAmerican meetings in February it was agreed that as a continuation of the cooperation which had existed between the National Health Service the Atomic Energy Commission and the Ministry for Greenland it would be useful to establish a restricted committee to maintain continued contact with the American authorities and to follow the execution of the measures and investigations which had been agreed upon In close contact with government this committee was further• more to make additional agreements on any measures or investigations which might be deemed necessary for further clarification of any other factors connected with the accident and take any additional measures for the protection of the population of Greenland against possible effects of the accident On 8 March 1968 the Min• ister of Education the Nuclear Installations Act which includes rules on the safety of such installations is administered under the Minister of Education on behalf of the Government approved the establishment of his committee The following members were appointed H H Koch Pef 1anent Under-Secr tary of State and Chatrman- -- ec qtive Committee Danish Atomic Enel'ff missidlt · E Juel Henningsen M D Deputy Director General National Health Service • Jt rgen Koch Professor University of Copenhagen and Consultant to the National Health Service H --1 assen Head of pi vision Ministry for Greenland or ·-' •• • • ' • - • Dr F Jacobsen Assis nt Director RisA l l _Gj p M Sc of Health Physics De- pamflantr ttu __ Head -- • G figh d of Sectlc n Panisb Atomic Energy C o was appointe as secretary of e Committee- 'Fhe efunmitt maintained close contact with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs throughout Mr Vigh was appointed as secretary of the Committee The Committee maintained close contact with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs throughout During the period following the meetings in Copenhagen on 15 and 16 February 1968 in accordance with the agreements reached investigations and clean-up operations were carried out in the Thule area However ort the basis of the negotiations between the American and Danish technicians and scientists working in Thule and- as a result of the contact between the American a fthorities in Washington and the above mentioned Danish Thule Committee the measures taken were continuously adapted and in certain respects changed as further clarity of the circumstances of the accident was established As the above mentioned work progressed it became evident that another meeting would be necessary for estat ishing a new overall evaluation of the case What was needed was a comparison of the extensive Danish l -- - I ·-- -· have t place at Thule ll-- a- onlinuing basis and in meetiatgs at Copenhagen • - fP F ticipanf ' discusaedjhe for removing eoji inated snow This had been jointly agreed earlier as·a h·ousekeeping measure even in th absence of concern regarding biological hazards Remo al of contaminated snow is now nearl mpleted This snow is presently contained safely in storage tanks and the contamination will be removed from Greenland The group noted that removal of contaminated aircraft debris from the ice is nearly complete except for small pieces which are still being recovered The recovered aircraft debris is being stored safely in metal containers at Thule AB and will be sent to the · U S for disposal In addition to reviewing the housekeeping operations and agreeing that they are nearly complete the scientists jointly examined the extensive data • gathered from the ice at the crash point as well as from outlying areas These measurements- have confirmed the earlier views that there is no risk £or human beings nor for marine animal or plant life Joint surveillance will however continue In the course of the spring and summer of 1968 the clean•up work of the area around the crash and the removal of the aircraft debris and contaminated snow and Ameri an e ment t°d in results on the basis of w iich a revJSJon ancl extensaon of the agreements reach n Copenhagen cou rawn up For this purpose a meeting was arranged in 'Washington for 18 and 19 March between the Danish and American -authorities At the meetings the progress of kwgrk was discussed including the nearly completed task of removing the contaminated snow from the crash area and the likewise nearly completed collection of airplane debris and fragments of the nuclear weapons In addition the scientific evidence collected by both countries confirmed that as hitherto assumed there were no risks involved for huJnan beings animal and plant life as a consequence of the crash New agreements were reached as to the completion of the cleaning up of the area the removal of aircraft debris and of contaminated snow and ice as well as the completion during the coming summer of control measures including a radio• ecological investigation program The joint press release of 19 March follows Danish and American scientists and officials met on Monday and Tuesday to review the status of operations at the site of the B-52 crash in January near Thule Air Base Greenland These meetings continued the cooperative approach to technical matters associated with the incident Previous exchanges 10 JAN FEB MAI 1970 I and ice ·were completed The Danish health physicists from Riso followed the work for further ·details see article Danish Health Pysicists' Activities by O Walmod et al Already at the time of the February meetings in Copenhagen the Danish authorities had emphasized that they wanted to ensure complete safety with regard to the risk of possible consequences for human beings and animal and plant life also of possible long-run consequences At the March meetings in Washington this position resulted in agreements concerning the implementation of a Danish radio-ecological investigation program to be carried out during the latter part of the summer of 1968 The purpose of the investigation was to obtain further confirmation of the scientific evidence previously collected by both countries A more detailed description of the program and its operation in August 1968 can be found in the article Ecological Survey by F Hermann and Christian Vibe In support of the radioecological program the United States furnished an oceanographic research submersible the STAR III for This re-evaluation is in keeping with the conservative scientific approach followed throughout the recovery operation The Danes will conduct the main phase on the surface where samples of plant and animal life will be collected and evaluated Their party operating from the 54-foot Danish motor ship AGLANTHA will consist of five Danish scientists specializing in the fields of biology ecology hydrography and health physics One American scientist will also accompany this team Their 1-month surface survey will also provide an opportunity to acquire new knowledge of the region's normal ecology In support of the joint program the United States is furnishing an oceanographic research submersible - the STAR III-which will survey the area below the crash site Underwater survey operations are expected to be completed in August In addition to the joint survey the United States will remove previously collected ice snow and aircraft debris from the Thule crash site This low-level radioactive residue will be sealed in containers and tanks and transported in three Military Sea Transportation Servjce M TSt sh J l during August and September to the tJnitetl States 1 r dispo l The ships wi1Cun1oad the matmal ar the United States Army ·Port· at Charleston South Carolina It will then be- Yed ·tjy·· rail· for final burial at the· Atomic Energy mmission AEC Savannah River plant near Aiken South Carolina As requi -th1 d lipmen t' M'ill be monitored during th e tire operii_iio oompliance with all existJS j safitoc_r Ji3ns · - Welitw iffs -eljri wq pre vi Usij Airlifted to the AtomicEoergy i o n P lte _pl_a itt at Amarillo Texas · ··- - - - ·• The material procured during the ecological investi• gation program was e«posed to further radio-ecological investigations at Ris6 in the same way that previously collected material had been examined and measured The results of the radio-ecological investigations are described in the article by Asker Aarkrog The in• vestigations led to the following conclusions as stated in -t his article The radio-ecological investigations have shown that the plutonium levels in the collected samples in no instances were such that thev can be considered harmful to man or to higher animais in the Thule district or in any part of Greenland Nevertheless the B-52 'a ccident measurably raised the plutonium level in the 'marine environment as far out as approximately 20 kilometers from the point of impact The highest concentrations were found in bottom sediment bivalves and Crustacea The higher animals such as birds seals and walrus showed plutonium levels hardly significantly different from the fallout background The Danish Motor Ship AGLANTHA the investigation of the sea bottom at the crash area Reference is made to the following joint press release as of 9 August 1968 The Department of Defense and the Danish Atomic Energy Commission announced today the beginning of two wrap-up actions related to the B-52 crash last January in Thule Greenland First Danish scientists will lead a joint two-part ecological survey Second approximately 600 c9ntainers of melted ice snow and other residue collected at the crash site will be shipped to the United States for disposal The joint Danish United States ecological survey will begin at Thule in early August It is part of a joint Danish United States follow-up effort agreed upon at the last meeting of Danish and American scientists early this year The survey party will again evaluate the environment in the crash area Previous joint scientific findings established that there was no risk in the area for human beings nor for marine animal or plant life as a result of the B-52· crash last January USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY 11 H I I j GL ir -- ' _ ' SA'c ·On-Bcet e Commander - M ··oEN R a HUNZIKER · _ I • • r-' THE POIN · 'J' HETHER in war or in peace W adequate military response is based upon expecting the unexpected and being prepared to cope with any contingency Aircraft are designed to rty not to crash Weapons are designed to destroy a target not to have their parts spread over a peaceful countryside Yet when· these unplanned events occur immediate action must be taken to determine the extent of the problem created to contain and control the effects and eventually to restore the affected area to a clean and safe condition This is the report of the search and recovery portion of one such effort designated Crested lee which was carried out under my command dur- ing the 70 days between the 21st ot January and the 30th of March 1968 It is not a technical summary there are specialists who can provide that It is rather an overview of the problems faced management decisions madf and the unique-at times unorthodox- a pproaches which had to be taken to meet contingencies as they arose -- The 21st was much like any other winter Sunday in Omaha-until about 3 o'clock in the afternoon I had just finished lunch when I was alerted by the Strategic Air Command SAC Headquarters Command Post that a B•52 had crashed somewhere on the ice close to Thule Air Base at 4 39 p m ·creenland time The first reports were scanty 12 but enough to indicate that a recovery effort be initiated immediately It was known only that one of our B-52s was down and that it carried four atomic weapons which must be accounted for l'lleither the cause of the crash the fate of the crew nor the exact location and condition of the aircraft and weapons wreckage had then been determined While such events are not planned planning for them has tak en place I immediately called the command post and started the sequence of events which follows a Broken Arrow the code designation for an accident involving a nuclear weapon The response was immediate and extensive Specialists from a wide range of areas-disaster control JAN FEB MAR 1970 radiat_ion monitoring explosive ordnance disposal medical and others-were alerted and followed the carefully prepared plans which it had been hoped woi ild never have lo be implemented By 7 25 that same evening my group and I were aboard a KC-135 headed for Thule Among us was Col Chester Hockett who was invaluable as my chief of staff during 1he entire project We arrived at 2 52 on the morning of the 22nd of January My Disaster Control Team was met by Col Paul D Copher the Deputy Base Commander and given a status briefing at the Base Service Club which had been converted into an office building for the team The initial response had been made by the Deputy Base Commander He had informed the SAC Command Post of the loss and had dispatched Mr Jens Zingler Danish National to alert the landers to the danger and fo· warn them to stay away from thl'° crash site Mr Zinglersen who had heard the explosion and seen the fire subsequent to the crash volu nteered to be of any assistance possible During the coming days he was an indispensable link with the Green- land population as he spoke both Danish and the native Greenland dialects After tra ·elin to the ·illage on the mainland to warn 1he Green• landers in the locality he and five other dog team dri ·ers assisted in locating the aircrew survivors - At the time of mvarri ·al six crew members had been localed five within approximately J hours The sixth the onlv fatalitv had been found a short time pre· ·iously The seventh and last crew member eventuallv was reco ·ered some 20 hours aher· the crash The crash site was approximately 8 miles west of Thule on the open sea ice of North Star Bay between the mainland and Saunders Island The aircraft had crashed on an f - Do111led1 with their Greenlander drivers USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY almost due south heading Initial helicopter reconnaissance reported only a blackened area approximately 500 x 2100 feet with no large pieces of aircraft debris in sight except the engines The weather was extremely cold - approximately -24°F A 7knot wind produced a chill factor which lowered this to the·equivalent of a -53•F reading January is the depth of the Polar darkness which engulfs the northern region during part of every year The sun would not be seen at all until the 14th of February yet within 2 weeks of that time its glare would be so intense that sun glasses would be required to prevent discomfort and eye damage There were many unknowns whether the aircraft had gone Aerial phot09roph of tho cro1h titO l3 - through the ice as appearances would suggest whether the ice was strong enough to support the weight of recovery vehicles where and what there was to recover were only a few of the many unanswered questions Preliminary survey by some base personnel had indicated light alpha contamination While this did not present an immediate danger it necessitated full documentation of both amount and extent and the development of immediate measures for its control and removal The first problem which had to be met was that of visiting the crash location Since neither the thickness of the ice nor its ability to support vehicles were known the first survey Thule weather contemplation There were press ng and serious problems which had to be met immediately and effectively As was the case throughout the entire project necessity and expediency dictated methodology Because of the possibility of con• tamination the village where the drivers lived was monitored for radiation on the 25th of January and periodically thereafter None was found except small amounts on clothing Aside from the requirement temporarily imposed that they refrain from seal and walrus hunting in the area of the crash until permitted to do so again the lives of these Greenlanders except for those actively engaged in the recovery forec olt of the areas as well as much of the activity during the next several days was directly dependent upon dog• sleds with their Greenlander drivers Later of course more advanced methods of transportation were developed For one given to philosophical contemplation the contrast between a sophisticated nuclear age and the basic survival methods of the Greenlanders gave pause for thought It was ironic that one of man's most technically complex endeavors had gone astray and that recovery from its effects must depend upon the most primitive of methods There was however little time for idle determined immediately if the problems inherent in the crash were to be kept under control These weather conditions also demonstrated the need for adequate shelters against the rigors of the storm The Greenlanders who served so long and well during the entire project were pressed into building a small colony of igloos capable of holding up to 100 people which could be used in case of emergency While these would serve well for survival it was obvious they would not be adequate for an on-site base operations which was essential It was necessary therefore to develop an on-site camp from which operations could be directed Early Igloos bunt of cia1h 11te _ effort remained unaffected Weather proved to be a merciless enemy during those early days Storms repeatedly swept the area Three days after the crash a surface wind of aoout 25 knots with gusts of 45 knots persisted for 12 hours Three days later a comparable storm lasted for almost 24 hours The equivalent temperature at times dropped below -I00°F The blowing wind in addition to raising chill factors to an unbearable degree created problems of visibility and aggravated the possibility of spreading the radiation in the loose blowing surface snow The tent level and type of contamination had to be 14 -•re-er• d l f - orctlc _ reports on the strength of the ice indicated that it was from 2- to 4-feet thick and in the process of thickening This was heartening because it meant buildings could be constructed and roadways could be built to alleviate the transportation problem A few years ago in the missile development era the term concur• rency came into comm9 use Nowhere could it be more appropriately applied than to Project Crested Ice It would have been desirable to construct the roads then the camp then engage in the search activities and eventually to launch follow-up programs Stark reality indicated the JAN FEB MAR 1970 l infeasibility of this y tematic ap• proach It ·as necl' ary to establish concurrenth· thl' on- ite hcadquar· ter dctcriuinc the - cope of the racli it ion problem reco 'er the weapon omponents and aircr 1ft debris prote t personnel on the ite from hazard inlwrcm in both the accidclll and in till' cudronment and begin proccclu n- ' to rontrol incl reduce r 1cliatiu11 h t1 tnls In order to do all of these things simulta• neou ly a hcterogcneou Kork force had to be mohilized and a firm and skilled guid 1nce maintained to assure that contu1Te11t ac tions 1- ere carried out rapidly 111cl efficiently This mobilization i1n-oh·ed per· surnwl lrom Danish authorities and and food had to oe pro · idecl ·fhe difficulties of inte ratin thh cli 'cr ifiecl roup into in cHicicm wurkinµ force dictated mana ement dcci- ion which a important to the ucce -of the operation It as decided at the tart that a 'ailable incli1·idu ils would he used without re_ anl for tlwir normal chain of command I n• oln d that this mu t he an or lllll ttio n of worker not ob en·er 11other pressin_ re ison for del iation from normal chain-of-command procc· clures ·as that the time lor solution of this ra I situation was of undetermined but limited lenl th 'ith the t omin o l warmer Kcather the ice would break up and melt and USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY 00 Camp Hunziker Genercil Huniiker with Jen Ziglenen cind unidenliflecl dog led driver over iO L' S a encies including elements of the Department of Defense Atomic Energy Commission State Department and other -in all over iOO people during the course of the operation The maximum i umber of people in place at one time- 6 -was reached on 14 February The sheer numbers of people and the fact that many had no experience in arctic operation presented difficult problems They had to be outfitted with suitable clothing and equipment briefed on the hazards of arctic operation and watched to assure that required safety procedures were followed Accommodations transportation friend - territor · t · i o nhnatural thai the 1n rki ·as in tt• n• te in the import of the t•vent mcl it po sible ramifications BccmN• ol ih rchll i 'e inacce sihilit it ·a dillin1lt tor 11e1 · men to ·isit the n•ne Alter consultation with Col J L ·nn Chief of Information Hq SAC I deciclccl that et ·crythin pm 1ble ·otdd be clone to facilitate their transportation proYide accommodatiom and a · i t in pro 'iclin at'l'u 1· 1tt• inlormation about the occur • rem·e Crt·dibil it ' ·as a 1 ·atch orcl from the ht· innin a to the end of the project hen information could be maclt• H 'ailable it ·a i 'en freely Where security dictated secrec -v newsmen were so informed 011 the crash site would disappear into the sea Whatever was to be done had to be done before that time and as rapidly as the unpredi ctable storms would permit The available personnel therefore- were divided into teams Leaders ' were selected because of their ex rience and competence and re ardless of current assignment or organization Concurrent operatio ns were con• ducted to the maximum extent possible Another major management de-cision had to be made within hours after my arri-val The teletype services of the world had flashed the news that a L' S bomber had crashed 15 -frankly without equil'ocation and ·i1hout apolov y In all l newsmen ·isitcd Thule T cntv-fi ·e were from the l' nitecl State · md 26 from other countries the re lle•a number from Denmark At the press conference on the 25th 10 countries were represented I per- onallv c onducted four press conlt'renct s one each dav between the 2 th and 28th o f Janua rv There were many questions but those mo t frequently asked related to 1hc extent of the explosion and the de· gree ol the radiation hazard 11 keeping with a ·owecl policy the press was informed without equi o· cation that there had been an exp lo- sion of the com·entional ma terials in at least some of the nuclear 1 ·eapons that some radiation was present and that there had been no nuclear ·ield ot only wcrc there attempts to keep the 1 o rld mformed but special emphasis wa placed upon close coordination and cooperation with the local authoritie hoth military and cidlian lt was co nsidered essential that the local communit · be aware of the hazards presente I and of the measures being taken for their control On the 29th of January t mcc tin was held 1 ·ith r Klaus Borneman the ctin Gm·ernor of Greenland and members of his party This snmc close cooper·a t1 o n was maintained throughout the project tional th a rduous task of erecting the camp bc an The local Danish 1 ·orkmcn who were r sponsiblc for the upkeep at Thule l' sistccl tre• menclousl ' in thi ta lc Prcfohricatecl huts 1n•re built It thl' bu t• tr m ll·rTl'd to tht· u-a h ite and en ctecl 011 tlw i c The fir t ud1 buildinµ 11' IS -omplN1 •d 011 tlw tth ol Janua n· - less than 2 da •s after the 1 ni · 1l of the Dr i ter Control Team fhe wwncl bui lding was ready on t he - 111 The 1 omplction ol the buildin 1111 1 · the firs t step toward a fun tio11in · IJcility Cen• erator for li htin ht • tlcn tele• phone and tt·letype lines di had to he inst dlec and maintained The use of rnund 'ehide 'as of thc pre ol ci rn1m t 111u· it h ul ori inall y ht·en pl 111ned th 1 1 l l u • 1 ·ork o f rc co ·en· and dt•to n1a n11· nation 1 ·m1lcl he arricd o ut 1111 l• hour b tsi lt oon ber mw q p tn· nl that this wa not po i l IL· f h e rnteme cold took ib tol I not o nu11 h ol men but of equipmL•nt Fh h li h t ba1teries would la t o nl y W min u te' Equipment de s i ned tor· u e in milder clinutes brokc it h unpleasant re ulari ty En ine had to be kept runnin II one topped it could not he tarted Jt a111 B 11te ne on the radiation monito r ill t•quip• mcnt failed An on-sit • Ii' rt·a t k alle tated th is particul tr proh l ni · BattL•rie wcr · c irric cl in idt• th e · outer clothin while the monitor0 o r t r r-· - - eta - In intente cold ond darkneu workers searched the blackened areo Equipment faitur-rood grader wlth broken front oale The lint wp in the de ·elopment of an on- irL· camp w 1 the establishment of a heliport whrch in addition to permittin quick 1 ue for earch pl rsonnel would permit supplies 111c materials to he flown in Heli opten could not land on the ice bceau c the • rotor wa h created J 1 0 cloud 'h i h reduced i ibilit ' to Lero 1111 problem 1 as ol L•d b · 11rlilti11 hcl·t o l ply oocl to en· • I i lw l ipo1t ltt•n laid o n till' ice the rotor 1bo r 11 ed th • l· 111 the tir o tha t it · nc c ary to de 'i e omc lllt'th01I ol l i ll'll111 them de n l lu 1· 1 oh·ed bv u si ng ·atl·r to freclc thc-m to the ice url 1H• Onct ' the h 1 lipt rt wa - rune- 1uthorizecl l01I01 inl a un·ey ol the ice which i nd ica ted th it 1t could hold 'ehicula · traflic a Ion i there w i 1ck•qu 1tt• 11 1c i11 o th It too much 'ei ht was not placed on an • one eµ ment Tw roads wert• built-one for inn mi1ig·traffir and one for its return In orflcr that one · of these roads mi ht t -- a th ird ro 1d wa 1 0 hu ilt o that o n h · two l•re in opc·r 11ion It Ill ' c ne time · 'ith thl' t'o mpll'tlon ol thc roach 1h1 · imnwcliatl' lo i tic prohlcm ol tlw o n- ik 'amp l k i nawd Camp I lnnzik1 •r bv Coto111 I L 'nn I ·a L' l'llti illy oiH•cl TIH• prob C'm o l m 11 ntt•n i tu c• lw 'l•n•r had only bc un B • a u c 16 Ill 111 trt1 mt·nt 1 ·a held in the h md C t nl i Ill' 1ll lt·n1 1 l·rt· ord ·i L· d Ii •111 the 1· -- 111d 1 - · •11111 ilh· d lt ltt · 111 h t t •• I h-d 1 ' l' ' l 11 ·d l 1n aiuh --11 nl t · p r •ll · 11 · c• ·er 1nad it n 1·t l ' ' 1 r · t 1· _ • •• t lv t ' i ll ll' -lt1 1t t •I t· 1d 1 _ l h llll l I l l I t · p 11 r 11 111 m 1111 i · 1 11 u · t lhl · i' r i111 1' tLt k 1 Ll ' to h1 · l r n l i IH· L l h inn·· t he b rt 1 dt l o f · t t 1 h J nun I n p t· o l ·ht 1 t · 1 l t ld tLLi ' t k ' t l 1zh1n pcH r d I ·· l•tllL r n L i • 1tl 111d · l' lt·r dly 111 tt·n · od tn dit 11 tht · ll l l'll 1-- i m·d to ltl· · · worl- l'd l11 n tour 11 h out ill 11 lll' tl Cldl'tlt It j if 'l ' 1 that t l1t-rL• e n· 11 't'h 1 u l 1r 11 · JAN FEB MAR 197 0 dents during the entire operation From the start decontaminaiion The first searchers in the area had procedures for per onnel equip• observed the blackened crash site ment and dogs had been in erfect and the fact that alpha radiation Monitoring the first parties to visit from the dispersed plutonium from the crash site showed contaminated the weapons was present In order to clothing particularly footwear define the limits or radiation moni- othing higher than a reading of toring o the- a a w ASidercd satisfactory for -'1ll a ze' lin j-'r i - i personnel f or by t was- _ 1-hr -eompnsect 7-- r - • nrmal Depar8 u re _ _which was_ ph-151 f pefense _stanc ffirils_ -ere acce1 Jf1 call t y_ropei sti u11g be- __ At the on-s1te tam_p t Jl__dccon - J t ii · 1M te - - -'i o - - n w c o ii o_'st1e wa tfp at - o -- tugmfiGd the B9t -1t aJ - h e «so mel who had bee e whi _t tjQ_n ir i $ - ' g nb· site entered on the h - __ readmg undenvent gross clccontaminat1on Accurate determination 0£ the and exited on the ··cool side Final levels of radiation depended upon decontamination was then completed at an on-base facilitv In orrler to radiological monitoring utilizing • • I part of the expense of the recovery procedures These skins were pur• chased to replace Greenlander pants which routine decontamination did not reduce to a zero reading In addition to routine cleansing nasal swabs were taken on all personnel and urine tests were taken if it was considered desirable In keeping with the concept of using experience regardless of organization CAPT R E McElwee USN of the Defense Atomic Support Agency was given direct command of radiation con- trol The actual decontamination procedures were carried out primarily by members of the SAC Disaster Control Team Although a minimal direct health • _ - - • - • - • • - z 11 ·- • · - '- _ _· _ _ Me tokln1J a ♦ebreak t•- -1ce _ grid m i t to '-oti'tain r ad i -t - -t he-10l a ttte# d eco6 1amt l ahar'd t he r- diation contamination systematically defined points Doing tion personnel every effort was presented an inconvenience to oil• this was complica ted as were all made to restrict entrance into the site search personnel as it was not other activities by the Jow t tffl t· _ co 't inaJep areas Vehicles fr om possible for them to eat in the c m• atu' i J '· J1 ' jl se- ot rectli_ -n laminated a_rea Because of he diffiEven 1fy th _· · - _ ref effort- u t e culty nd time consumed m tra s• and a oontour • • • • -- r o- bne -- _ __portat1on they were kept at the stte areas-df vari - · co -·· containinatio ii p r e for full 8-hour periods Here be developed · _ n· ffitf- -- stangard t of th_e contaminifton only liquids could be consumed pat bylat atest pe l jf -was r moved by simply brushing e Soup hot chocolate and coffee were all ctive r ja --- - 'Mlo _from garments arid ' v ehj s used by the gallon Kee ping these in blac d area·whic 'ff'atn orough cleansing -elfriti fed a liquid state until they could be the i ipfosi n and_ f1 Jl §r •J nioit or the rest _In t o e _h · swallowed was not always a simple follGf _Wthe impact It was apparent nee where contammah _n lf ad procedure Not uncommonly coffee that're fthe black snow crust · 'intp'regn fid t he' · mate rial' l t lie froze in the cup if conversation was fronf tQ Htop ot• tJi ice fl• cfothing was replace This la t r carried on too long In order to result• in eliminarion o -essentiinfy decfsioji accounts foJ -_the btll-ft r accommodate these workers at the all fhl_iit ifoniu° _· cont ination - tl tree-po1· a r skins which h e end of their shirt a dining hall o n ' -- USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY - 17 'I the base was maintained on a 24magnetic pole compasses wef e hour basis nearly useless It was almost impossible because of darkness and the A Weapo s Division was established on 23 January with Col Robert lack of reference points to obtain an S Marcum as its chief Its primary accurate heading which could be function was the recovery of weapon used to develop parallel grid lines and aircraft parts The initial search It was common for searchers who teams were instructed not to move had been in the same areas and seen any of the wreckage components the same pieces of debris to vary Understanding the dynamics of the widely in their descriptions of its location It was decided therefore occurrence could best be achieved if the parts in their relation to each to pick up all pieces as they were other were clearly identified This located This decision was further early survey located portions of all supported by high winds that four of the nuclear weapons The scattered the smaH light weight fact that all four had been accountei aluminum parts aggravating the n and the recovery for was announced publicly on tli 29th of January The explosion ' l i i f s Because of this as the which had occurred had completely pieces were accumulated they were us Wonen pldllng up debrl disintegrated the aircraft This relatively complc te disintegration resulted in literally thousands of small pieces and accounted for the fact that early searchen found relatively few large aircraft parts There was speculation at the time that portions of the aircraft might have plunged through the ice There was however no practical method of evaluating this possibility although later developments proved it to be correct lt soon became apparent that while it was desirable time would not permit the developing of an accurate wreckage grid Because of the relative position of the north placed in barrels cans and drums This phase was completed on the 20th of February The nuclear weapons parts were returned to the U S and the aircraft wreckage stored for future disposition From the begin ling P lan were made to support the operation with the best scientific talent available The American scientific group was established on 25 January with the arrival from the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory of Dr Wright Langham to serve as my Chief Scientific Consultant Dr Langham is one of the world's leading authorities on the biological behavior of plutonium With Dr Langham were Dr H D Bruner and Dr John Wolfe of the Almoff dellrl pll cl up on the IN Ice stacked into piles and covered with chicken wire until packaged for storage In the final analysis the search resoned not to scientific findings but to use of mass manpower It was conducted using aiffl en shoulderto-shoulder systematiciiUy sweeping the area many times TJi'e lines were maintained by noncommissioned officers NCOs whose primary function was to insure that the formations were kept intact Although sensitive radiological and metal detecting equipment was available the best mechanism for detection proved to be the human eye Eventually however the weapons and air raft pans on the surface were recovered and 18 Atomic Energy Commission and Dr Nathan Benedict and Dr Joseph Tinney of the Lawrence Radiation Laboratorv This scientific adviso ' group continued to grow until in all 23 U S scientists were invo1' t d They came and went as their dutir dictated The primary function of the group was to give me support on technical and scientific matten A second and extremely iplportanc function was to serve as a liaison with the Danish scientific group 10 work with them on a daily bam and to assure mutual compatibil11v of goals and procedures With th departure of Dr Langham on Ft-bruary 3rd the control of this group JAN FEB MAR 1970 passed to Col Jack Fitzpa Jield The 3-inch cores were obtained by C mmand Su geon hand drilHng through lbe i e and by Atomic Support Age ·- Jiad preserving the cores intact for subsearrived on the 31st of - qu 8' t ehotographic and radiological The first group of Dani _ eninch tilJ'- i nch monitoring In all over tists also arrived on 25 Janu is 180 were collated and procgroup consisted of essicr in this fashion Analysis of Koch an eminent ph · the t h reveale4 t aces of tritium University of Copen1it ien l1l4 11 Systematic eva ilon of the sea ice indi ted an lf proximately select Danish specialistdrom a - iety of fields As soon after the artj_ 100 meters in diamel which had as possible I met with the grouPJ been disrupted by the crash In the xtended a welcome Q pem central portion of this p sea water offered to assist in theif IW'Vey in - and large blocks OGSJiad risen to any way possible They-cii turn he surface and been_ en Cores expressed their desires 'for full · ·7 1r0m this area were-cefnaminated cooperation and mutual assistance €wes from other tJM e impact in the task at hand After this initial areil were clean · briefing the Danish members particTM tfariish s c i er partic- Pr S en ➔ - r i - - _ - - - - been reached on the extent of these studies it was anticipated that they would be continued and that the U S scientists would cooperate in every way possible Obtaining sea bottom samples was a particularly arduous task The same effort used to obtain ice core samples had to be expended in breaking an even larger hole in the ice through which grappling equipment with over 600 feet of attached line could be lowered On the 25th of January the first information meeting was held in Copenhagen between Dr Walske Assistant to the Secretary of Defense Atomic Energy and Mr Hans Koch of the Danish Atomic Energy Commission At Thule there were many -i -- 1 r - i - -- I i I J lornl_l Alt ohaaft dfflll • _ - _ - - •-ltl - ' ' -- _ _ - IIIN ci NtJ wl• --- - ipated in' prets e r e ¼ I ·j 1terest - i li· l g- te - i rrt¥ ar mejt -gs betw' en the repres ntative• -- ' 7 fJ _h gal effech wh1ch 1ght Dlmsh and Amencan scient ats dur- U S j - l1f' Danish ·1 « i 't a k i ' f i i o n to rouffrut- ing•the firfl few days on site Two giveilhea im -n l r n g -ot- --aub f - 1 moetings held on the mand_ headquarterr - e iri'-obtaip- • fffand_f JtfofFebruary to consider patrick Dr L 1J1 ·-a'4 · '-_ _of the seit- -bottom the '' problems of mutual interest These Bruner were d e s ··•ittedP6 waw ihe snow and the ut'- concerned radiation monitoring nical contacts t · - • They _weft also con- sample development of ecological These scientific advisory te t 'fthe long ferm effects on studies and discussions of the deciwere particularly useful -- Jlie Oor'a fiuna and numan inhab- sions which had to be made regardtennining the radiat fnel• whicfi m w'in th area Th r ecological ing the disposition of the wreckage St_ m ti _ inte r ts were influ__enced by t e af d radioactive ' aterial Another ultii_nate y resul d p' ftles of the entire ant • m add • hab1ts I9 the locat an nomadic g was held m Wash ngton on lion to surf a folopjl epi s-- d e r i _ with srJ rticular ··'tbW ' fh of Feoru1JtY i vofving U S and s 'ow samplesr -il a9pal ftt res to oed sources They were scte tists'il -stift l n t er joint veryearlyth t--m ny - d itateres -in-eva1uation wilcijife · meeting in 'Copenftagen-with Danish 1 1 re to be-tabn 11 at hlbol'mui - both surface and underwater and American scientists and author• was begun on the 5th or'February Although a firm decision had not ities on 15 ·and 16 February It was 1 fo ' °'4 µ va r 19 t i' i mutually agreed that the radiation hazard was minimal and that if all of the radioactive material in all of the weapons was allowed to sink into the bay the plutonium oxide would be diffused in the sea water and produce such diluted concentrations that no hazard would exist It had originally been estimated that l cubic kilometer of water would be more than sufficient to dilute all of the plutonium oxide from all of the weapons to drinking water standards · · Later calculations showed that only·• '•· 1 500 of a cubic kilometer would have been required In fact North Star Bay contains approximately 50 cubic kilometers of water It was agreed that while no aspects of moving masses of materi l were requested A number of proposals had been advanced as to how the contaminated snow and ice were to be collected This was solved by scraping the ice surface and piling the material into windtiow8 a Hot spots not scraped were moliitored and removed bv sh ing ' The next major decisio was how to store or dispose of the material Suggestions for storage rr duded-the use citwo-million-plusgitllbn aoov -ground storage tanks the use of permanent underground storage tanks the setting up of an on-site filtration plant and last the use of a number of 25 000-gallon tanks that were at Thule Air Base in the tops of the tanks through which the contaminated snow and ice coulll be clumped The next problem im·ol 'ed removing the contaminated ice and snow from the crash site to the storaj e area Plvwood boxes IOfeet long vere especially constructed for this purpose The boxes were filled by continuous belt loaders and front-end loaders and were transported to the base on £lathed trailers On-base cranes lifted and dumped the contents of the boxes into the 25 000-gallon tanks As the tanks were filled the covers were welded back in place In all 67 tanks were filled with contaminated snow and aircraft debris and an additional four tanks with general contami- serious radiation hazard existed good housekeeping demanded that the area be cleaned up and the radioactive waste as well as metal debris be disposed of properly This presented me with the second major ries of problems to be faced in this operation It was first necessary to review manpower requirements and skills involved It was readily apparent that the shift in emphasis required a shift in manpower and operations techniques As this first phase was closed large numbers of personnel were returned to the United States and others primarily those con• cerned with the civil engineering The last alternative was the one that was eventually selected It was decided that the contaminated snow and ice would be placed in steel containers ·for storage pending final disposition The Danish Consttoction Company was engaged to assist in the preparation of the tanks' ° This was an excellent choice The cheerful patience of this group of dedicated workmen their hours of productive effort and their willingness to serve were m 1jor factors in solving the many problems yet to be faced The tanks had to be removed from their installation deaned al'l l all open• ingsweldedshut Holes were then cut natecl debris such as tires and lumber Owr 3i 000 cubic feet of material were im·ol 'ed Venting sy·stems were installed to relieve any internal gas pressure which might develop when the snow and ice melted Evaluations indicated that no problem of critical masses that could lead to a nuclear reaction was involved so provision did not have to be made for this By the 15th of March -the total area had been cleared A radiation survey completed on that date and compared to one on the 27th of Februarv indicated that the radiation haza d had been reduced to negligible proportions 20 JAN FEB MAR 1970 On ihe 18th and 19th of March a U S Danish meeting was held in Washington to examine progress on the project On the basis of the material presented it wu decided that the removal measures to date had adequately fulfilled expectations At this meeting it was decided that the sun would be exploited to the maximum To precipitate melting in the impact area it was agreed that 25 000 square meters would be treated with black carbon sand During the cleanup operations it had been necessary to preserve good housekeeping habits since items thrown onto the snow produced faster melting which in turn developed holes into which the decontamination of roads vehicles and loading areas The Danish Atomic Energy Commission personnel also indicated that they would continue with their ecological studies In the final effort to assure that all aircraft and weapons had been collected the area in and around the crash site was systematically ploughed and again inspected by long lines of airmen Areas which were unsafe for such procedure were surveyed by use of helicopter using radiation detection equipment suspended from a cable In all approximately 30 square miles were subjected to these treatments This work was completed at 6 00 Platlled fr•II• loaded with ltoae• ftlled with conto•lnatecl lea and 111- items as large as a trailer could be lost It was anticipated that the heat absorbed by the black sand would act in the same way to accelerate melting This would then accelerate the dillution of the residual radioactive materiaJ by permitting it to mix with the- 1 ater in North Star Bay Its initial use over a test area prov_ dis4ppointing however wit i'-M nger summer days melting war hi reased so the project wu not p It was a l s o at the meeting t_hat the crash ou d be fen and· posted This p roject wu c ompleted Oil the 20th of March mutual concutrence normal pod healthpracticesweretobefollowedin USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY p m on the 30th of March at which time the evaluation and recovery portion of Crested Ice was officially terminated Final storage sealing and decontamination procedures continued until 10 Ap'1 µ when the last member of the Disaster Control Team departed Greenlartd This was none too soon for estimates had been given which irc'dicated that approximately l May would be the last time that ice operations ·c uld have been continued safely Every experience n retrospect has ig Bgbis which make it mcmorablc No matter how JtCim there arc lways pleasant interll1dcs One- · or these occurred in the Crested Ice 21 Project when the American Ambassador to Denmark Mrs Katharine E White visited Thule on the 24th and 25th of February ·With her was the Honorable Erik Hes selbjerg Permanent Undersecretary for the Danish Ministry for Greenland and the Honorable Mr Hans Koch of the Danish Atomic Energy Commission as well as other distinguished dignitaries It was my pleasure to brief them and members of their entourage on the progress of the project to that time It was also my pleasure to see Ambassador White present to Mr Zinglersen the well-deserved USAF Exceptional Service Award for his outstanding contributions to the Crested Ice effort This effort was a Crane at warli on tho I N Ice • reflection of the full cooperation and tireless effort of all of the Danish and Greenlander personnel who became involved in the project Every project also has its amusing side Because the Greenlanders were unable to hunt food for their dogs during the time that they were so ably assisting the early efforts of the Disaster Control Team each dog had to be supplied 3 9 ·pounds of veal or horsemeat for each day it was worked The Thule Commissary probably became the veal center of the Air Force and certainly the only one that stocked fresh honemeat ·On the serious side there were lessons·reamed that should improve r - - • r I F - ·- - Air Force reaction to th is kind or emer ency These lesson ccmerect around l ood pre-plannin flexibility adequate support and priorities in handling requiremellls There is alwavs a conflict or interest bc1ween immediate accomplishment and ap ropriate documentation The Crested Ice Project reemphasized the 'alue of a carefully prepared program and adequate documentation to indicate progress as well as areas which requ ired reconsideration In the lonv run comprehcnsh·e documentation is the keynote to the saving of time and money II I i I 11 I 1 Workers acroplng conto111h1otecl snow from the sea ice Secillng o tank containing oln roft debris Crone lowering a chvte onto 25 000-gollon tonk preparatory to loading ii with conla111• inaled snow and ice Hopcfullv there will be no more · - Ur oc - om K able1 roblerris · · · - l f ver th -pr ject' denf nstrated · a ing itw'astheal limiti '-' l s t- 1aytabi i y oh ell-tra_ined dis ri@ n1 c'J and mol at ·d p ople Their intellig _llce ingef Qity and d termination in sol fi roblem without precedent t - _ e most inhospitable of e vii _ n en 'Yas a source of great •pMde to me ·To ◄ I men like t ri' ¥1g i inipossible Their saga will be a cont 1uing inspiration to all of us ·• L I i JAN FEB MAR 1970 The crash path of HOBO 28 prior to Impact on the Ice A TL A ----------- __ • j STATES ' 0 KINDL Y AFI 0 USAF NUQEAR SAFETY 23 C E A I • I I I ' - -I 1 l --- The Command Post had been activated at 4 50 p m when it was notified of the plane crash but until Major DeMario called no one had any idea if the crew had bailed out where they had bailed out or if they had gone down with the plane Now the Command Post staff had a point of reference ' All off-duty security police were recalled over the basewide public address system and also over Radio 1425 Thule's Armed Forces radio and television affiliate station Twenty-one security policemen split into seven teams and began searching the base and the roads leading to the various miliCOL G S DRESSER tary sites in the hills above the main Commander installation All tenant units at sites Thule AFB Greenland in the 20-mile radius of the installation sent out patrols to search for the remaining members of the bomber's O many people Friday the 13th concrete weighted buildings perched crew signifies a day of ill omen But to on pilings above the permafrost All personnel were instructed to U S Air Fofc e and Danish officials Then someone spotted flames out report the sightiflg Of e lights at Thule Air Base Greenland Frion the bay ice toward Saunders or sig·nals to the Base lommand day 13 Septembei' 1968 was a day of Island The Base Command Post Pos It was imperative· t find any elation flashed a messat rc to Headquarters _ · survivor quickly The temperature The last of 600 containers of lowUnited States Air 1-·orce of an acci- _was a •23°F the wind was blowing at level radioactive residue from Projdent near the Aerospace Defense 9 le nots with a chill factor of 5 Exect Crested Ice were loaded aboard Command ADC installation at the posed humau flesh would freeze in a U S Navy cargo ship for transport top of the world At one of Thule's 2 minutes to the United States mammoth blade hangars a stranger Telephones in the Command Post Air Force and Danish officials walked in and asked to U IC a telewere ringing constantly now Somewatched as a giant 150-ton crane phone he was Maj Alfred J one reported sighting lights on hoisted the l t J 5 000-gallon con- o a member of the bomber's South Mountain More flashing tainer of debri melted snow -r cre'w -Major DeMario called the lights were seen on the ice toward ice from tlut1pi to the dedt 9fJ Ooiliinand Post and · ported to Col the wreck Ground rescue personnel U S Navy Shipl fAR IN- E - - Copher atting base comdriving trackmasters and two HH-43 D ish r e s_ that the bomber carryhelicopters assigned to Detachment to ltl IIJ' p o n _of seven at least six of 18 Eastern Air Rescue and Recovery t l i ca6'es • _ - -- · ad eJected ove the base area Center Military Airlift Command penonnet at Th - r i'nlitlat the huge stratofortress was investigated each report Snow refinal act completed a difficult painscarryi Jg four unarmed nuclear moval called to report that they had taking task which had begun many weapons picked up another survivor near the months earlier when a B-52 bomber base dump He was SSgt Calvin caught fire and plummeted to the Within 10 minutes of Major DeSnapp a gunner aboard the downed frozen surface of Wholstenholme Mario's phone call Capt John M aircraft An hour and 15 minutes had Fjord 8 miles from Thule Haug a pilot on tht B-52 called in gone by since the plane crashed into Except for the base air traffic confrom another hangar This conthe froien bay trollers and a limited number of firmed Major DeMario's statement staff members personnel at Thule that the crew had ejected i 9ver the Colo eJ Copher on advice from Aerospa · Defense Command Post were completely unaware of the base The Command Post diij atched at Ent Ah- Force Base Colorado drama taking place in the pitchan ambulance to pick up both men dispatcheci four security policemen black sky overhead The impact and take them to the dispensary shattered the arctic stillness al- that where they were treated for bruises to the crash scene with ground res• abrasions and chills Sunday aflelJloon rocking the base's cue persorinel They were instructed HOST BASE SUPPORT T crew guicleg lfii ff - • ·r USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY 25 to stay 2 000 feet from the _wreck A rado were airborne A Strategic Air built six small Sxl6 foot buildings mman l Disaster Control they marked each piece as to locahelicopter hovered overhead at 1 900 feet and reported the impact had- 'untler th command of Maj Gen - _tion then disassembled the buildand packed the pieces for broken the ice In spite of the h - unzi r Strategic _ Air pient of the burning wreckage the 3 _ - - 'mand o r of Materiel toolt-off thick ice had refrozen witl in minu - from O fu Air Force Base - · - -- tihtn three days the Prime Beef uivalent - Duoog t e next few _dllYif · j l J -- ers_Engineering Forces after the impact temperature was -50 - - _than 700-m1 1ta ae so r J -1 Tea orlung m almost total dark• Helicopter pilots in Pedro II Amencan and Uimsh sctenttsfs and ness and bitter cold had built a helispotted two parach t s d ' Wo eJ ' C- - news en re n ng_J a dµfe nt port anC l sii-Jm fabricated buildings out in news med 1a m North Amenca nd installed rators for electricity tion seats on the ice 3 the bay and bep_n following the_ • iurop would deplane at Thule ·· - - telepbonea ltl llines and radio comfootprints leadi118t Y fr lheua • • - t rnunic _ations and completed the first • _ -J - p m Monday 20 Jf u - o_f thr - ce ro ads_ o the a cid nt A radiologif At u itor checked t h e e s·from thi base aftes tlle- ash searchers rescue¢ _ work a ej ·lbdrolf 1cal momtonng dump to ffli f unt as·- remaining survi'vor Capt C team had 4' ty staked otit the for radiation 'b ffitai ll g_ v · Criss was found wrap d • - ···entire zet Ji hundreds of readin s A se Jrit L_pot· - •e _chu n ar u 1l_ - tD m -z • reE · · ake made by searchrng the s o es'Oft 2 llnd- suHermg J tom a d1U d- _t t be - h$i s F odhghts were South Mount a - sii H - slro am H evere fros _it -_ ' on1 tee es placed in base found t1fl f-mllt-e sq ivon tain Cri - as- evacuate l -by '' ieli- 1 tid n tiarrels to illumiwalking toward the _instalfati ilj copter to the dispensary for _- ·t · n te the ea Work crews now had -·- · - - an--'opemting ·base-for the reco •ery Frank F H h a bro t lfiarnl nienL and Capt Rich g _ - red _ ith the last c - mb t ac _ _ f t de bris from cuts and br_u tses Pedr r IJ __ j ounted for- lhe base r mtssio n Greenlanders built survival igloos - a' d the two fu th e dispensan - ifted t o supporting the Strategic ·as backup elters in case a sev re y g 00 p IJl ai t fro num- Air Command's recovery operation - arctic torm should blow away the erou s Air Force ba S es in the United _ All base personnel indudingi ithe - -'· prefa ri buildings Jens Zing· States'were en route to Tu C-97 Danish Construction Corpo r aygn • lersen acted as guide interpreter le£t P_ ase Ajr Force as New the base's operations and mainte• - andcpnsultant to General Hunziker Hampshire and a C·l30 dep nance contractor began workin 7 • J pe On-Scene Commander and to Sondrestrom Air Base Greenland days-a week along with the Strategic- -1 C S Dresser Base Commander with signal flares aboard A C-130 Air ·eommand teatri to get the conDanes in the Packaging and Cratalso from Pease with two investigattrot and-recovery effort started and ing Branch of the Transportation tcfsupport it as the tempo incre ased Section constructed 14 sleds for use ing teams aboard stopped at Goose Bay Labrador to pick up two @il The first order of business was to · · on the ice by the recovery teams With sleds and tractors the recovery An Ex plosive Ordnance Disposal tlJ tablish a-base camp at the site to Team and an information offlteet ' provide shelter equipment support _ teams began collecting wreckage dispatched by the AOC's Cof 1 - 0n ination control -points and • Using hand tools sacks marker Po t at Ent Air Force Base _ -· · coJhmlinications The base sht 'ps· poles and steel barrels the men _ _ _ • -- - r• - - _ - meuntea· _ ' - • ' _ '· ' - Pnfabrialtecl llitlllldlq1 aN 01-the beginnings of an operoting base for t_ e oi_ Craft debris - 1- _ - - • • _j f f -J -- - u j _ _ ---··· ' - --- ·-· ' -_ _ lecovery lea•• collecth19 wrwcko1-ote the • I ·1110 919und _ - - p - p ' -- -• ·_- ¥ ----' - •• • · - - --z - ·· J r - J' - _ • · · _ • f %°• x 1l•f on - · the _ _ J 11 r- 100 · walked shoulder-to-shoulder g 0 ll em to the _ i ii 'Oilit asplaced out- welded shut They were stored in the okl Strategic Air Command muniing bits and pieces of the zere4l r decontaminatfl ns storage area The cleanuP _ of rangi ng in size from a Ule t a • non contFol of- ne leaclff the package of cigarettes Ther pile4 the cr h site n was tJIM f i the -· ffie aircraft debris was completed on 20 February · debris and secured it witfi'wire-uet y ork crews ta as coffee break against the wind · - · £ 1ity attcf 6 1aced During this period the various Road graders windrowettlfl e·JiilbW mimvay bet -and the supporting base activities at Thule in the area and personnel sprayed site to be used as an emergency had performed their special functhe windrows with foam to freeze shelter The men also erected a tions Security police controlled enthem so that ·the winds would not Jamesway building to serve as a suptry exit and traffic to the site spread the debris and contamination ply point and built a second heliport accounted for the numerous perWith the activities of the recovery Fourteen large R-4360 engine consonnel on the ice and controlled the operation increasing there was tainers were flown in to be used to entry for the Disaster Response a constant demand for more space hold aircraft debris Civil engineers Force Command Post and a holding at Camp Hunziker A 92xl8 foot found 11 large tanks in the base satarea for classified material rearctic building was flown in and vage yard and these too were used covered at the crash site transported to the site in sections to contain wreckage Danish conBy 29 January 65 security police where civil engineers put it together struction workers prepared the tanks from First Air Force had arrived Civil engineers discovered three for use by sealing existing holes and fully equipped with arctic gear wannigans portable buildings cutting access openings The tanks After a 2-day familiarization briefon skis at Camp Tuto an Army were then hauled to the site on large ing with local security police the installation near Thule and hauled flatbed trailers filled returned and personnel manned the special posts lloocl grader wl11dN wln9 tfle n_ In Hie muh oreo Oonl1h con1trudlon worker cuts o flller pipe hole in Ille top of on 1- 360 engine contolner Crane hoisling engine into container I set up for the reco ·ery operation One unique factor was that the supervision of security police forces was split Base Central Security Con• trot supervised security posts on base and in the debris storage area while the On-Scene Commander di• rected security police activity at the crash scene Both radio and longline communications were used to coordinate the activ ities of the two security forces - ir Transportation Service coordinated scheduled and monitored all air traffic associated with Crested Ice Due to Thule's isolated location and winter conditions the only means of transportation was by airlift Militan Airlift Command and Strategic Air Command aircraft were used Seventy-eight sorties were flown carrying 749 personnel a nd l 770 499 pounds of cargo - ir transportation was also the Helicopler used in ferrying penannel to and the camp site and Thule Al fro ■ primary means of nto 'in personnel and carg-o fro m Th ule to the crash cene durin the fi r t few d nn of the reco ·e ·Opt ration task ·force of three HH--t h of Detachment 18 Eastern Air Rescue and Recoverv Center stationed at Thule and thre CF· LFs of the ' 34 lst Strategic lissile Wing flown ·iii on a C-1 l J from Malmstrom Air Fo rce Base Montana were used T he choppers flew l 583 sorties transporting 4 524 per• sonnet und H t U B pounds of cargci The Base Tra nsportation Branch manifested all personnel and equipment going to the site at Hangar 6 Vehicle dri ·ers presented a copy of the manifest a modified entr and exit roster to the guard at the entry control point at Delong Pier A per• son's name on the manifest was his authorization to proceed to the accident area Transportation personnel forwarded co pies of all manifests to the decontamin a tion talion in Building 773 - s personnel returned from the · site and were processed through -de on ta m ination their names were crossed o L the list Personnel travelin to the site by heli· copter were authorize ½ to proceed to the site directly from I lan ar 6 Cpon their return 'they ·ere sent bv bu to the d eco ntaminat ion center where their return was recorded Danish civilians employed by the Danish Construction Company con• trolled d ispatched and maintained most of the surface wl icles Three general pur pose 'Chicles were made 28 available to the team on a 24-hour basis for the On-Scene Commander t he ice sur 'ey team and the supply sen·ices ection Other traus porta• t ion requirement s 'e r e su pe d mposecl o n the normal h e needs Taxi r uns increa ' ccl from thirt v thousand to e 'ellt th o usa nd a month ehides were often used for tasks 'hich they were not designed and it was frequently necessary to attempt to match cargo loads to the Chicles an 1ilable 'hen buses and other ·ehi d t•s a rr i ' 'd from the Cnited States Transportat ion heduled re ula r passenger and resu pply rum to the ite Base Supply coordinated req u ire• ments of the Weapon Reco ·er ' D1· ision Communications Oi ·isio n Radiolog-ical Health and Co ntami• nation Control Di ·i iun and 1he Base Support Division for Proj ect Crested Ice Three supply loca t ions ·ere manned 24 hours 7 d l ·s J week to respond immediately to all suppl y requirements Dail y - upply per onnel monitored all · outstandin11 due-ins and receipts to insure thJt received property a s m ad l· 1m mediately available to the req 1ll t l r According to a Strategic - i r 111 mand-Aerospace D fense Com111 1 11 d agreement Thule went d i rel th depots for stock numbered i11•m usi ng their transcei n •r or telepho111• For local purcha e items base u pph called the rt•qui rements to thl' t r J · te ic ir Comm 111d when• the p 1 cd to the proc un•mcnt ol 11«· 11 estm·er - i r For c lla e fa 11 h u etb ero pacc Oelensc Com 111 111d furn i hecl the 11ece s 1n· lun d 1 ·c to 1 •r for the procuremell1 K · qu ircments for support of u th · u 1r Co mmand as s i necl u1r 11 i11 p 1 l·d din•ctl y from Thull· lo I h - i r Force ot Opt• n1tionally K1· 11h Suppl y Control at tov • 1- later a l upport incl comp l I suppl y 1t t io11 Suppl y persomw l proc-e sed u 1 0 1hnU ' ll1 b ol l i11 t· i te m l' 11 1' ' P from 1011 lr ictor- u11dc•r w • 1 - to ' hp · m dn1ai11l·d 1 pldt• iatus o f l quipnwnt and r · JAN FEB MAR l Q70 I - -- shipped including stock number quantity description source and document number All items were issued to the Strategic Air Command on custody receipt With the removal of the aircraft debris from the area completed the Strategic Air Command Disaster Response Force departed and a new phase of operation began The · Danish-American meeting held in Copenhagen on 15 and 16 February had established the general conditions for the decontamination of t acc 4@nt a 14 Tons of snow and ice cont'itllinated at low-level would have to be removed An expanded civil e ering division was estit-1 March with full re- s directing the sn rentQ mer tion - • - - - --r- Mn fiiu -ilie - fre ijon ot' A - - ' Col _ T• h s - Bise i- 1 neer lnd the San Antonio Ai ' Malfffefi1Ai-ea team chief Danish co j p- workers disconnected __ ·· aban t JS 000 gallon P6L tanb andtra nspo rted 'lhem on flatbed trailers to Hangar 2 where workers steamed the tanks clean of petroleum and other possible explosive material They welded all unwanted openings and cut three 5x8 foot openings for snow-loading in each tank Workers moved the adapted tanks to a storage area near the shore for filling At the site Air Force personnel driving road graders windrowed the black crusted snow and mechanized loaders poured it into l foot Medlonlud load 11111111 wooden bo••• with black cruated 1now long 7-foot wide 4-foot deep Tarpciullni belnf placed over th• lop1 of boxH to kHp the snow from wooden boxes placed on 30-foot flatbed trailers When the boxes were full military personnel at the site placed tarpaulins over the tops to keep the snow from blowing The flatbed covered with a double layer of plywood to facilitate decontamination was swept clean inside the zero line and hauled to the site control point where another tractor pulled it to the tank storage area At the storage area Danish crane operators lifted the boxes in slings and tripped the hinge on the end of ' USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY blowing _ a the box to let the snow tumble through a specially constructed metal chute into the tank When the tanks were full they were sealed and fitted with a pressure vent A total of sixty-seven 25 000 gallon tanks were filled with low-level radioactive residue An additional four tanks were filled with contaminated equipment such as brooms tires and handlools After the area was clean of cont am in a ted snow civil engineers spread the cracked ice section impact point with black carbonized sand to absorb the sunlight and melt at a faster rate than the ice around it Workers painted the tanks black to absorb the sun's energy in order to melt the snow and ice inside The Snow llelllt '' lhn1119ti o apoclolly d111te l•to U OOO-t0lloll te1tk San Antonio Air Materiel Area shipped specially constructed plastic greenhouses to Thule to speed the process These proved effective until the first arctic storm blew them out to sea As it turned out the black paint did the trick The resulting water was pumped into smaller con• tainers to facilitate shipping the residue and the lightened 25 000gallon tanks to the United States for disposal During August Danish and American scientists using a 54-foot Danish motor launch MS AGLANTHA and a 24-foot minisubmarine STARR III conducted repeated radiological surveys and ecological studies along the shores of Wholstenholme Fjord to insure that no -•truclocl Tllo Air P'ofa tuglNMt at Th•lo Al • - Illa U S No iy MAIINE P1DDlR o t l O hfty Nofth Sta lay t'i contamination remained in the area The U S Navy Ship MARINE FIDDLER sailed with the last container of contaminated residue Tuesday 17 September 1968 on an 11-day voyage to Charleston South Carolina where the containers and their contents were moved by rail to the Atomic Energy Commission's Savannah River Plant near Aiken South Carolina As the huge cargo ship picked its way through the icebergs in North Stai· Bay and began slippinJt into fog-shrouded Wolstenholme Fjord bystanders on the pier smiled as they read an inscription someone had painted on the end of the last barrel That's All Folks '' londlnt 9eor llelng p p d for fOIIOYal from tho oa co • i • oadl119 •lnl b11arl11a STAR Ill _ flatbed at n11lo Al jO # rs -· b · - r 'i Col C S Oreuer right bcue co111111ander at Th11la Al and Co111111ander Jo ven Molgard Danl1h Liai1on Ofllcer 111ake a clNn 1wNp af Project Crested Ice USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY 31 DIFIECTOFIATE OF INFORMATION HQ Strategic Air Comm• 'd EMBERS of the Strategic Air C Ommand DirectorM ate of Information DXI are well aware that each tacted Phil Goulding Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs ASDPA and Maj Gen William C Garland of SAFOI It was then agreed that SAC DXI would draft the initial news release and coordinate it with Mr Goulding'soffice for release As the only specified command in the Department of Defense SAC works directly with the Office of the Secretary of Defense on many matters particularly those involving public affllirs As a member of the OCT Robert J Boyd a civilian historian arrived at Thule on one of the early deployments He was able to gather material and begin the documentation of events-as they occurred-rather than retracing past events By being on the scene during the critical first two weeks the historian established his requirements for _the staff and built a foundation for his final report the search and recovery operation continued the DXI staff was able to gather source documents and compile reports necessary for an accurate story • It should be noted that the final report of the Palomares accident was on file with the Historjcjll Division It was taken to Thule and used as an organization guide aircraft accident is different Each involves variable circumstances which often present unique problems in making complete and factual information available to news media as rapidly as possible Thus when SAC DXI was alerted by the command post shortly before 3 p m CST Sunday 21 January 1968 that a SAC B-52 Stratofortress was down near Thule Air Base Greenland reactions were prompt and based on well-established procedures THE ALERT The first call was to the Public Information Division's Disaster C Ontrol Team DCT alert officer He is always on telephone alert and is prepared to deploy immediately with the SAC OCT to the scene of any SAC accident having a major effect on a civilian community Within minutes the DXI office was staffed by the Director of Information C 01 Mason A Dula his deputy C 01 Alfred J Lynn and representatives from the Public Information Division In addition to the sketchy initial notification of the accident it was learned that the B-52 with nuclear weapons aboard was from the 380th Strategic Aerospace Wing Plattsburgh Air Force Base New York · While the DCT staff was forming the Secretary of the Air Force Office of Information SAFOI alert officer was notified The Director of Information also con- THULE The first news release concerning the accident was drafted by SAC and coordinated through the Defense and State Departments and also with the Government ol Denmark It was released by ASDPA at 9 45 a m EST 22 January 32 JAN FEB MAR 1970 temperat res were below -25 F The area was in polar darkness except for a 2-hour twilight period each day thereby requiring flares to assist searchers in helicopters and dogsleds This second news re lease noted that more details would be available as additional dogsled teams returned The third news release was made at 2 a m EST 23 January It summarized a 2-hour visit made by a ground survey team by dogsled to the scene This release described the fuel-bum pattern on the ice and the small fragments in and around the bum area More important the announcement stated that none of the parts located were identified as nuclear weapons or parts of them Also a nonhazardous amount of light- fixed and closely confined radioactivity was found in the survey area In an effort to report all available information this third release went on to point out that personnel on the scene had picked up limited amounts of low-level radioactivity on their footgear All were reported to have undergone normal decontamination procedures with no resulting problems The first announcement acknowledged that the crash had taken place identified the aircraft's home station and unit and stated the aircraft was carrying nuclear weapons which were unarmed so that there was no danger of a nuclear explosion at the crash site The announcement confirmed some of the rumors which had been circulating among a few news medium representatives in the Plattsburgh Air Force Base vicinity The release naturally provoked a deluge of inquiries directed toward ASDPA SAC Thule Air Base and Plattsburgh Air Force Base Weather and travel conditions from Thule to the accident scene approximately 8 miles out on North Star Bay prevented immediate response to most questions RELEASE RESPONSIBILITY The responsibility for release of information for the United States rested with ASDPA represented by Col Willis L Helmantoler who arrived at Thule in a matter of hours after the SAC DCT He remained for the next 7 days Colonel Helmantoler and the SAC officers worked jointly on the early release of information on the Thule accident to the news media After Colonel FIRST DAYS Helmantoler's departure however United States During the first 3 days when these news releases were release responsibility rested with the SAC Information made news media interest in the crash was intense in Officers on the scene who acted on behalf of ASDPA the United States and Europe-particularly Denmark USAF and SAC The initial public announcements generated a variety On 1 February ASDPA delegated the authority to of questions Some could be answered readily most the SAC Directorate of Information to release daily required research or coordination with Thule DX I public affairs summaries and later added the authority who worked out replies with Danish Greenland and to periodically release photographs Forty-one consecAmerican scientists at the scene Other questions utive daily summaries were provided 14 addressees for touched on classified information and simply could not reply to news queries Once Project Crested Ice operabe answered tions settled into a routine the daily summaries were Despite the fact Thule was geographically difficult discontinued Periodic reports were provided whento visit newsmen indicated considerable interest in ever new information warranted them traveling to the accident scene The difficulties in get • ting there however did discourage a number or them There were three U S points of information release Two press visits materialized early Members or the ASDPA in Washington SAC DXI at Thule and the press arrived at Thule within an hour of each orher American Embassy in Copenhagen The latter however about noon on 25 January The first group includt'd I generally deferred to the other two agencies in matters American newsmen flown in by ASDPA The wcond of technical expert opinion and facts Particular care group of 26 newsmen included Danish French u was taken to keep the Danish Government informed on German and British reporters who arrived on a Jnd1 all announcements All other policies followed were navian Airlines System flight after coordinaunw 1h general public information policies spelled out in Air visit with Danish officials and the American F mb4 ' Force Regulations 190-10 Release of Information on - in Copenhagen Accidents and 190-12 Release of Information to the 'Public A second news release was made by ASDPA approxi- • PRESS PROBLEMS The arctic darkness and severe weather cau led onw mately 7 hours after the first It described the aircraft's problems in accommodating the 51 newsmen Tran approach for an emergency landing after declaring an portation of the newsmen to the accident scene was d1fli emergency because of fire in the navigator's compartcult and time-consuming Two flights were made o rr ment and intense smoke in the cockpit It concluded by the crash area in an Air Force C-121 Photottnph r describing the locale and the extremely difficult and newsmen were airlifted to the scene by hehcoptf'r environmental conditions under which searchers were Darkness extreme cold and bulky arctic clochmc operating Because of these difficult search conditions made identification of newsmen at the crash seen• m t the acquisition of new information was very slow Thule USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY 33 the · base a problem Small DOD press badges were not adequate therefore annbands labeled Press were locally produced easing the problem Photographs taken during the first few weeks following the accident were poor The polar darkness and cold provided serious problems Shutters became inoperat ve and batteries failed after only a few minutes exposure to the numbing cold It was cumbersome to use many cameras due to bulky clothing Rubber flash attachment extension cords became so brittle they disintegrated in the cold and perception to distill the often technical often classified facts into a releasable piece of information comprehensible to the general public The fact that information of this nature could be exchanged during detailed press conferences attests to the briefers' overall knowledge of the situation They received full support from the OCT staff and scientific groups in preparing for the conferences COMMUNICATIONS Virtually nonexistent commercial telephone and wire service to outside points caused some communication problems for newsmen Arrangements had been made for copy to be filed through Dundas Radio a Greenland village station about 8 miles from Thule Although a system had been established for hourly delivery of news copy this proved untimely and awkward for the newsmen who wanted to file each story immediately as material became available One military telephone line to Cornerbrook Canada was made available Calls out of Cornerbrook were placed collect to the United States or Europe Those to Europe experienced some difficulty getting through since overseas calls had to be billed to a U S address but generally the system worked well Calls were normally limited to 5 minutes and priorities were established by newsmen drawing numbers from a hat Photographs were sent at the conclusion of each daily session All of the American newsmen except four returned to the United States with their ASDPA escorts on January 27th Thereafter formal news releases were made almost daily Many replies to queries were researched and answers provided The newsmen remaining at Thule were handed a short statement on January the 29th which announced that parts of all four nuclear weapons had been found The release stated that serial numbers on fragments found on the ice at the crash site corresponded with SAC records of numbers on various components of the four weapons The three-sentence announcement concluded by saying that the search was continuing for the remaining weapons fragments The last of the 51 newsmen left Thule on 31 January During the next 2 months only three more news media visits were made to Thule Mal Oen Richard 0 Hunalller 2nd from left SAC On•Sane Ca111• mander and Dr Wright lan9ha111 left of the University of Collfomla's los AJamo Scientific laboralofy briefng Greenland oflldala ahortly after their arri•al at Thule Al PRESS CONFERENCES Four press conferences were held during the early days when the first large group of newsmen were at Thule Maj Gen Richard 0 Hunziker OCT commander hosted four conferences which included participation by members of Danish and American scientific groups at Thule The third conference in the series consisted of a short interview with the B-52's aircraft commander one of the survivors still at Thule General Hunziker informed the press that there had been an explosion of the conventional materials in at least some of the nuclear weapons that some radiation was present and that there had been no nuclear yield Credibility in the conferences was strengthened by the openess with which everyone answered questions and the maximum Danish and American scientific participation Because of the extreme sensitivity of all public affairs actions concerning the crash and recovery proceedings the release of an information was triple-checked to make certain it did not mislead or distort and that it was in the best interest of the nations concerned Such a challenge was never-ending for it required utmost integrity • · PROTOCOL '- Although considerable time was required to escort the visiting newsmen the OCT information representa• tives were also involved in protocol matter i and liaison with scientific teams Normally information personnel prefer to point out that events involving protocol also invariably have news media interest and that the information man best be left to meet the needs of the press However events at Thule demanded the attention of a senior officer knowledgeable in all facets and ramifications of the operation one capable of acting as an 34 JAN FEB MAR 1970 intermediary between the military scientific and governmental agencies of the countries involved Colonel Lynn by virtue of his years of information experience and his close working relationship with General Hunziker was ideally suited for this responsibility Since the Government of Denmark obviously had an inherent interest in all Project Crested Ice actions Danish and Greenlander officials and scientists had to be kept fully apprised of all actions taken with respect to the search debris recovery decontamination and long-range clean-up planning Similarly American scientists and State Department officials had an equal requirement and interest News releases and answers to media questions had to be discussed and coordinated with these individuals The rapport established with these individuals and groups during the crucial early stages of operations extended to liaison on matters in many other areas and proved beneficial to the overall success of the public affairs program THE DXI TEAM Unlike other Disaster Control Team members who remained at Thule thro ghout Project Crested Ice the two SAC Directorate of Information representatives and Combat Documentation Team members were rotated every several weeks While Colonel Lynn primarily directed public affairs throughout the first 5 weeks other select officers and noncommissioned officers participated without in any way diminishing the daily effectiveness of the information program The rotation provided a training experience that could never be simulated The experience gained by those involved fully justified the rotations Mr Jens Zinglersen a Danish citizen who was the Thule area representative of the Royal Greenland Trade Department Ministry for Greenland provided invaluable services throughout the operation The importance of his technical assistance and untiring efforts at the accident scene during the first days were obvious to all who depended upon him It was therefore gratifying that the United States Government officially acknowl edged Mr Zinglersen's valued contributions by awardAMbctuodor White preMntlng Mr Zlngleraen with the U S Air force Exceptlot1al Semca A-rd ing him the Air Force Exceptional Service Award The presentation was made by the U S Ambassador to Denmark The Honorable Katharine E White in a specially arranged ceremony on 24 February I968 The OCT information personnel were responsible for making arrangements for the visit of Ambassador White and her party which included distinguished Danish officials and five Danish news media representatives After Ambassador White presented the award to Mr Zinglersen the entire visiting party toured the accident scene and held a press conference IN RETROSPECT If one were to attempt to pinpoint a single reason for the success of Project Crested Ice's public affairs program he would undoubtedly have to hedge a bit and attribute it generally to cooperation True full disclosure about the presence of weapons and the search for them was made rapidly and daily follow-up reports about the status of operations at Thule contributed immeasurably to a lessening of public concern None of this information could have been made available as quickly fully and as frequently as it was without the unqualified cooperation and coordination of the United States and Danish Government officials scientific team members and the many agencies involved with Project Crested Ice Such cooperation permitted spokesmen for both countries to discuss the accident and subsequent proceedings candidly and fully with newsmen thereby discouraging uninformed speculation and any resultant unnecessary fear When the last 25 000-gallon tank of melted snow from the accident site was loaded at Thule for shipment to the United States the most significant thing about the event was that it was Friday the 13th of September 1968 There was no ceremony no need to call attention to the climax of a gigantic task and no requirement to reassure everyone that all was well This confidence had been established and accepted long before Instead of any fanfare some unknown soul merely annotated the final tank That's all folksl -and it was General Hun a iker tolltlng with Ambauodor Whit••• po ty on Ill• MO lea incident such as the one described in A contamination other articles in this magazine invariably creates a I to the Los Alamos Saentific Laboratory and other lab- • oratories in the U S for analysis and interpretation This article summarizes the early work done at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and elsewhere in an effort to provide some of the information requested real or anticipated need for specific technical information not readily available or easily ootained under field ·conditions The type of supplemental information required is usually determined by the specific needs of the field commander and various special committees and policy-setting groups as an adjunct to their making decisions as to the extent of contamination the magnitude and nature of the potential hazards to operational personnel and the inhabitants of the region whether direct or through ecological modes and the extent of decontamination that is acceptable and technically feasible Within 5 days after the incident an American technical advisory group was assembling at Thule and discussions were initiated with a similar group of Danish and Greenland scientists In the next few weeks various agencies Atomic Energy Commission AEC Department of Defense DOD etc assembled expert committees to advise them In addition joint U S -Danish policy-setting groups met in Copenhagen and Washington to consider the technical aspects of the incident The final decisions as to clean-up levels methods of disposal and many other issues were made by these high-level groups and committees Since these authoritative com mittees and groups needed all the information possible within the time frame of the negotiations the demands placed upon the field operations became one of the field commander's bij gest problems Often these demands could not be met without additional technical and laboratory support beyond that a •ailable at the scene To comply with these demands data and samples were sent PARTITIONING OF THE CONTAMINATION In an incident of this type the most important information to have as soon as possible is the absolute quantities of material partitioned among the various vectors modes or regions of dispersal and deposition At Thule the important considerations in this regard were • The amount of contamination carried aloft in the cloud from the detonation of the high-explosive and fire and dispersed over the general area by the prevailing meteorological conditions • The amount depos'ited on the surface locally • The amount deposited on aircraft and weapon debris - • And the amount in and beneath the ice at the impact point Contamination associated with debris would be ex pected to be distributed beneath in and on the surface Absolute determination of the quantities of contamination associated with each of these vectors or modes of dispersal and deposition was essentially impossible However from the practical viewpoint the most important considerations at Thule were the amount form and _fixation of plutonium and tritium on the surface in the immediate vicinity of the crash site and in the refrozen ice at the impact point where decontamination operations were technically feasible The speed of the plane at impact was in excess of 36 JAN FEB MAR 1970 - -·-· -·· 9llRCE WN ON CTION PHAIIJ 24 WaAHDPHASEI Z MI -- I II 9IIRCE WIii OIETl0N ONZI MNII Figure I Pluto11ium con ta ml nation level ab1erved CONTAMINATION OF THE SURFACE 500 knots Its gross weight was about 410 000 poundsthis included about 225 000 pounds or J P-4 fuel The shallow impact angle and mass and speed of the aircraft resulted in a great forward vector of momentum When the high-explosive components or all four weapons detonated the contamination was blown out in all directions and impinged into the materials of the weapons and the aircraft and blown into the splashing burning fuel The fuel and much of the debris from the aircraft were catapulted forward on the surface of the ice When the burning fuel fell back to the surface the fire was soon extinguished leaving the blackened refrozen crust on top of the snow pack Figure 1 The ice was completely shattered and disoriented at the impact point and sustained circular cracking out to a dis1ance of about 100 yards in all directions The peculiar markings on the ice showed the drag and destruction of the left wing from this the crash attitude or the plane was deduced From momentum considerations and the pattern on the snow pack one would expect to find a large fraction of the surface contamination confined to the blackened crust where it was fixed by ref_reezing of the melted surface This was indeed found to be the case The remainder of the contamination was dispersed in the smoke plume impinged on the debris of the bombs and the aircraft and blown into the ice at the site of impact USAF NUCLEAR SAPETY Plutonium Disln butio i and llmou 11 Simple autoradi ographic studies as well as instrument measurements established unequivocally that the depth-distribution of plutonium in the snow pack was strictly a function of the depth of blackening and melting of the surface Over a large part of the blackened area this depth was no more than a1 out one-half in·ch More plutonium contamin n· was found and its distribution was to a greater de in those areas where more fuel collected and b u· r ' lting in mo e-melting of the snow pack In the · _ __ ·· · y cqntam1nated area the snow pack had m Iti • · fq 6 surfaae -ot tpe Sul' fa dis- tributi lotoriiuin ther -than that adhering to ¥ dt 4-1fris wttich w r picked up large p· _ s h o l e ®nt urs were establish by die monitcirmg teams►using the- lawrence Rad1at1on Laboratory Field Instrument for·Detection of Low Energy Radiation LRL FIDLER instrument Because ef the vari 9Ae thick™' ol the Q¥erburdfn of ice and snow complfca 1unttediy the two phase_t _of 25 and 28 January it was -nesessary to app y different calibra• tion factors to the instrument readings for the areas within f tii n Ullitio - contq fi As a - ample where tJie tu' mation level was Ji1glfitt ' lstfrng m 1 more fueF_l ad ·burned and the snow·pfi¢k htd melted do -'n to and even into the ice Upon refreezing the 37 kinds m l glass and nylon fibers plastic rubber flecks of paint etc of all sizes The mass median dia• meter of the inert particles with which the plutonium as frequently associated appeared to be at least 4 to times larger than the plutonium p'articles themselves Many of the elted crust samples showed the presence of unburned Jet fuel A very crude estimate suggested that as much as 18 per cent 4 x 10 pounds of the fuel may have remained unburned in the blackened crust Sedimentation studies showed that up to 80 per cent of th plutonium as associated with low specific gravity debns that remained suspended in the jet fuel The general feeling was that this fact increased the probability of contamination of the shoreline should the bl kened crust be allowed to melt and enter the bay Tnttum-Form Distn·bution and Amount Laboratory examination of samples of the snow pack from the blackened area showed the presence of tritium oxide confined largely to the depth of the blackened crust As water a major fraction of the tritium contamination would ave been expected to be carried away and dissipate with the smoke plume Only that would remain which condensed on surfaces and nuclei that were rapidly cooled to the ambient temperature -25 to 35•1 The tritium fixed in and on surfaces in this manner would be expected to dissipate at rates that would fluctuate with temperature and wind conditions It is not possible to establish tritium surface deposition levels with field monitoring instruments because of the extremely low energy 17 9 kev maximum l of the beta radiation it emits To determine the amount of surface ritium contamination present with any degree of certainty would have required an extensive and int nsive sampling p which hardly seemed justi• fted under the circumstances It was considered adequate therefore to determine tritium in a relativelv few samples of the blackened crust to confirm its presence and to establish the magnitude of contamin•• tion as assurance that no personnel exposure problems would occur during the operations Analyses of th w samples were considered representative of the areu within the plutonium contamination boundaries figure TABLE 1 Distribution of plutonium on the surface in the vidnity of the crash excluding that picked up on aircraft debris Contamination Boundary mg m 2 380 112 8 2 4 0 9•• 0 26 0 19 0 06 Enclosed Area mZ 1 97 X 10l 1 lOx 104 2 49 X 104 3 90 X 104 5 97 X 104 1 10 X 105 1 34x 105 2 23 X 105 Plutonium Deposition• g % 845 27 89 96 98 99 99 99 100 2816 3014 3079 3109 3135 3140 3151 •Total 011t to the specified bounclory • • Edge of the blocken•d area 'l i l absorption characteristics for the soft X rays from plu• tonium and americium were quite different than where little depth of melting and refreezing had occurred Absolute contamination levels were obtained by taking representative sample in each contour area subsequent to a careful instrument reading and returning them to Los Alamos for plutonium and americium analysH otal amounts of plutonium ere obtained by integral• mg the surface concentration as a function of area Table 1 The plutonium values are probably good to 20 per cent out to the edge of the blackened crust area which corresponded roughly with the 0 9·mg m 1 contamina· tion cont ur This information indicated 3150 630 g of plutonium on the surface excluding that picked up on aircraft debris of which about 99 per cent was in he blackened pattern and ould be removed by remov• mg the snow pack over this area Assuming removal of the crust and packed snow to an average depth of 4 inches the volume removed would be 6000 m' 1 6 x 10 gallons Assuming further that the volume ratio of packed snow to water is approximately 2 5 this would constitute about 6 x 10 gallons of water which would contain between 2500 and 37 b of plutonium Plutonium-Form Particle Size and Fucation It was felt that the ultimate distribution of the plutonium in the event large amounts of the blackened crust were allowed to_ break ' 1P with the ice and go into North Star Bay n_iight be mfiuenced by its form particle size and fixation Detailed nuclear track autoradiographic and microscopic studies of melted crust samples were con• ducted to obtain pertinent information These studies showed the plutonium to be in the form of oxide par• tides with a very wide size distribution The count median diameter was 2 microns with a standard devia· tion of about 1 7 The calculated mass median diameter was about 4 microns The particles were associated with or adhering to particles and pieces of inert debris of all Table2 Distribution of tritium on the surface In the vicinity el the crash excluding that picked up on aircraft debrilt · · • Plutonium • Contamination Boundary mg m 2 380 112 8 2 4 Enclosed Tritium Deposition• Area mZ curies I 1 97 x 103 1 10 X 104 2 49 X 104 3 90 X 104 365 657 986 1337 27 2 49 1 73 7 100 • Total 011t to the 1peciflecl boundary 38 JAN FEB MAI 1970 11from dtkh tlwy ·C'rc t 1ken Integration of the tritium lt• ·ch 'ithin these houndar ic gaYe a very crude estini 1tt• n l the distribution and total amount of tritium h thin the blackened pattern The results are shown in T 1bk• 111 1 ug esl a total of approximately 1350 curies of tri tium mn 'inC'tl to the art•a in the form of tritium oxid ' The C' timalt' ' are prohably iccurate to 50 per 1 c ut T h i tnl IU III of tritium ·mild have to be diluted into 11 111'- - 1 • lO 111 or w tt•r to be at the maximum pt·11111 le ·onu ·11tr 1llo11 for continuous consumption that additional information regarding amount distri• bution form fixation etc or the contamination of the fractured area was desirable before making decisions as to its ultimate disposition Plutonium-Distribution and Amount A closely spaced core sampling grid was laid out over and around the fracture area Figure 2 and 49 £ull •thickness core samples were taken and examined These cores were studied visually and microscopically and were scanned inch by inch with monitoring instruments Representa• · tive cores were transported to Los Alamos for further study and chemical analyses for plutonium as a means of standardizing the scanning measurements made at Thule Results showed that the plutonium contamination was usually confined to a narrow band which often could be detected visuallv because of the associated debris from the disintegrated aircraft and bomb casings The band of debris with the associated contam ination was sometimes on the bottom or the core sometimes on the top and sometimes displaced from either end Some cores showed diagonal bands and others no bands at all These observations reflected the fact that the fractured ice was displaced downward returned to the surface and refrozen in a more or less random pattern with respect to the reconstituted surface The fact that cores were scanned inch by inch permitted a crude statistical estimate of the depth-distribution of the plutonium in the ice It appeared that about 13 per cent o the total plutonium in the crushed and refrozen area was in the top 2 inches 36 per cent was in the top 4 inches and 45 per cent was in the top 6 inches About 15 per cent was in the bottom 10 inches The remaining 40 per cent was distributed between 6 CONTAMINATION IN THE ICE AT IMPACT POINT Tlw ice at point n l impan was approximately 3-feet thid lmpact of tht' pl uw and detonation of the hight' plo i 'c rumponC'nt o l thc four eapons on board comp t•tcly frat'tmed and cli placed the ice over an area of d out H K m -- ti m x 16 m The ice sustained circu lar cr 1rki11 ·ithout dbpl acement out to about 100 m lro m the imp ict poi nt hotropic propagation of the h od w t e lro m the hi h-explosive detonation accelcr tccl a fraction of the contamination and debris from the' disinte ratin ' aircrah in the downward direction impin ill it iuto tlw tr a turc area When fractured the pieces of ice ere displ an•d downward into the 'atcr rundumh- oriented and returned to the surface wlwrc the y rc fn ze in position The attitude 0£ the plane at imp 1ct ·a - mh th at essentia lly all or the £uel was i 1 · 1 'd and al m e the 'e 1pons This would be expected to rc u h in the majority of the fuel and contam ination c111 r 1i1 wd from u lar c olid-an le be ing accelerated up and fon ard on tht• urfatc of the ice by the dom inant lon u-c munw ntum The j encral feeling howe er was · _ · - t •-' 0 0 1- • _ t 2-4 8 fflQtml · - 0 3-1 1 o - 006•03 ODl·OOI - c00t ' I - Q 0 0 Figure 2 lee ore somple ocotions USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY 39 1 l I I I I I I l I inches from the top and 10 inches from the bottom activity in the ice at the point or impact The plutonium d istribution pattern in terms of CONTAMINATION BENEATH THE SURFACE contamination perm' of surface area was highly erratic and it was not possible to represent the results by any A very difficult question involved the possibility that contamination might have been dispersed beneath simple contour pattern Figure 2 There was a tendency for the most highly contaminated cores to elltend to the - the J ee in a form tqat could reach the shoreline or be concentrated ·• by soTne biological process in the local back and sides of the center of impact which ight be food web Two possible modes of contamination and expected from the relative position of the bombs with dispersal beneath the ice were proposed for examination respect to the main body of fuel and the crash attitude One possibility was that a pool or pools of highly of the plane However cores of comparatively low radioactivity were interspersed among the most contaminated jet fuel might have been trapped beneath radioactive cores suggesting a highly segregated pat• the surface near the impact point To examine this possitern probably related to reorientation of blocks of ice bility the field teams took an additional 133 core by the force of the impact and explosion The random samples 85 on a grid pattern around the fractured area orientation of the rectangular grid with respect to the and over the blackened surface pattern and another 48 crushed ice pattern supports the assumption that the outside the periphery of the pattern Figure 2 None cores were statistically representative of the primary of these cores showed any contamination on the bottom end and no jet fuel or other floating debris was forced impact area in terms of total plutonium and range of up through the core holes by the hydrostatic pressure local concentrations Results from the 49 cores showed that 16 per cent contained 65 per cent of the contaminabeneath the ice tion and 52 per cent con tained 97 per cent An estimate The second possibility considered for plutonium to of the total amount of plutonium in the fractured ice have gone beneath the ice was in connection with conarea - 2100 m' showed about 350 g The accuracy of taminated aircraft debris that might have been blown through the ice and sunk to the bottom Pieces of the estimate was probably - ±25 per cent The amount of plutonium in the ice would ha ·e to be dispersed in about aircraft found on the surface were transported to Los 5 x 10• m of water to be at the maximum permissible Alamos to observe the amount form and fixation of concentration This is about 60 times the water volume the associated plutonium contamination No tritium produced by the melting of the porous ice itself observations were attempted Debris consisted of pieces of steel aluminum and other materials Some pieces ' _m ' i and Fi 1 a t wasJ elt ge lly were highly contaminated on both sides others on only tlia4- _ on ·fo a1 1 1_1izf101 -th p um one side and still others showed hardly any contaminam t_b J a 1ght ns tion at all Due to the numerous unknown quantities and reganfing· ts··liltfib te avaifil i -1 f c a l inherent inaccuracies no attempt was made to deterchains icrmco d a u t o seti a ons mine from the contamination observed on the debris of the residues filtered from d ek ite cm-e samples the amount of plutonium that might have gone through s d fine fii t itres of pjutonium w oxi4e irn_ptn' nto the ice However later underwater observations during ox •4h _ing t eieces of t1Bq li - --ris the summer season dealt with in a separate article in ° f al_l s The lackened b cj ip _i m­ this magazine established that the aircraft debris which _ s1sted-ofmtlll pieces of metal l'M lier f16i Wt-R'- lnt penetrated the ice was stabilized on the ocean floor pias c ·etc up to i mm 'in si1 e to the1 lu um o x ide particles were fixed · · -- iaiidn 4 ti i of Microscopic and autoradiographic observations showed that the contamination on the pieces of debris m lted-' i wed at ·• ··the consisted of particles or plutonium oxide impinged into d associat P utt n ·- · dior adhering to the surface Lavation tests in sea water at lv -No J fuel floate f on in fi ine cii-bonizedift'a r he were conducted on contaminated pieces of steel and h iionium aift · · · _··· -- • ith ··• - aluminum to determine removal as a unction of time p -- • - -·· this•m b o o - · Gt j er ·qept was us- Different rates were observed for different materials as well as f r different pieces the same material The pended thr ' parti cles observations supported what might be expected i e This rapid sett mg'G Jiaijt e-i littOl fum greatly decreased the possibility or 'shbft ftf cqnta ination • that removal rate' ' vould depend on tJ nature and hardness of the s e and velocity of the impinging from floating debris subsequent to melting o e ice particles which woald be dependent on the distance of Tn'tium-Form and Amount Only a very few Cj9res the surface from the detonation ln any event these from the crushed ice area at point ofj_mp i ''fere ohservations suggest hat if indeed a large amount of exami Iortritium contamination tamircation plutonium was carried to the bottom associated with was in the Q of· -apd the f appe u vd to _aircraft wreckage it would not all be released rapidly be of the order of 17 mCi m' assuming the ice averaged or at the same time This would make the possibility of 1 m in thickness This value multiplied by the area high concentrations at any given time very unlikely 2100 m' suggested a total of only about 35 Ci of tritium i_ -· ti of J ' v_e y Ii 40 JAN FEB MAR 1970 and integration o deposition contours at the crash site suggested that the amount of plutonium on the surface was 3150 ± 630 g approximately 99 per cent of which was confined to the blackened pattern on the snow pack The plutonium in 'the crust was in the form of oxide particles often associated with larger particles of low density inert material which tended to remain suspended in unburned JP-4 fuel Tritium contamination in the fonn of tritium oxide was found on the surface lar ly confined to the blackened crust The amount a t· about- 13 Ci ± 50 per cent The aobeervations·sugpsted tlm removal of the blackened Q USt and its aasociatecl plutonium contamination was desirable - · • Laboratory analysis of representative ice cores taken from the fracture pattern at the impact point which were related to field instrument scans of other cores froip•theiarea gave· an esfimate of 350 g of plutonium tra l i Reoge QlaliQJJ- and refreezing of the brbJc ltmffiecf1'f t'fsegregated contamination pattern both with respect to depth and area In this area also the plutonium was in the form of oxide particles associated with inert debris from the bombs and aircraft There was little or no unburned jet fuel however and upon melting of the ice the contamination did not float or remain suspended This fact was further assured by covering the entire fracture area with blac k carbonized sand which in addition to accelerating melting of this area absorbed and sank any jet fuel film that might have remained afloat to suspend contamination The estimated amount of tritium as the oxide l trapped in the ice at the impact point was about 35 Ci These and other factors such as distance of the impact point from shore and depth of the bay suggested that it was unnecessary to remove the approximately 2 000 tons of ice involved ATMOSPHERIC DISPERSAL AND GENERAL AREA CONTAMINATION - l l l The amount of plutonium and tiii m taken up in the cloud from the explosion re and its distribution as long-ra gene co t ination were virtually imposub letto predict with-the available information All avaifabie data including cloud height regional meteorologfcal conditions time of the crash and for 10 days after pyrotechnk information etc were sent to the Sandia Laboratory tor consideration in view of thar'organization 's experience with nonnuclear detonation experiments These field tests have resujted in the development o detailed data and calculational models for estimating deposition patterns and contam• ination levels from nonnuclear detonation of plutonium-bearing weapons The principal p_a rameters needed are source strength aerosol characteristics highex plosive yietd and detailed local and long• r ge meteorology Unfortunately conditions at ThuleJwere such that several o these parameters were either obscured unknown or unpredictable Based on the inadequate information and several assumptions the Sandia Laboratory was able to draw three general conclusions which are summarized as follows • Deposition of the aerosol produced initially would have been expected in a west-southwesterly direction on open ice and Wolstenholme Island No deposition levels could be estimated since the source term was obscured by the crash conditions and aerosol characteristics were unknown However the original long•range deposition pattern would be expected to be changed under the prevailing phase conditions during the first few weeks after the crash • Wind-resuspended contamination probably traveled around and possibly over Saunder Island However the condition responsible for the transport • Projection of contamination through and beneath made redeposition of much activity on the island the ice at impact point was considered also Additional unlikely core drillings made throughout the general area of the • The levels of long-range contamination expected crash failed to reveal any floating pools of jet fuel would be radiologically insignificant but because of trapped beneath the surface the inherent sensitivity of chemical methods plutonium All contaminated large pieces of aircraft wreckage should be detectable in surface samples taken south and on the surface were picked up and confined Laboratory west of the crash site studies were carried out to determine the form fixation Plutonium analyses of surface samples from the and lavation rates of plutonium from the surfaces of principal land masses in the general area are presented · and discussed in another article in this magazine ·_· wreckage These studies suggested that if indeed large ' pieces of contaminated wreckage had broken through the ice and sunk to the bottom there was little likelihood SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS that high concentrations of plutoni m could enter some Immediately following the Thule incident a tech- • aquatic factor of the local OQ i web nical and laboratory support effort was mobilized to • Attempts to calculate meteorological transport and comply with requests by the field commander expert deposition of long-range contamination although quancommittees and policy-setting groups for additional titatively unsuccessful did suggest that contaminat io11 technical information and consultation This effort conlevels on land masses south and west of the crash site tributed in part to the following factors thought per__would be radiologically insignificant but probably tinent to the Thule situation _ measureable by chemical analysis of surface samples • Laboratory calibration of field instrument readings USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY 41 A report on the Danish Scientific Group investigations immediate actions and long-range -planning regarding the B-5J accident at Thule DANISHrSC ENT FIB-GRINJP INVESTIGATIONS • _ ' - ' ' '- jlJRGEN KOCH Director of the Physical Laboratory II Unlveralty of Copenhagen Coun llor to the National Health Service of Denmark the meeting in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in A TC Openhagen on Tuesday morning 23 January it was decided at once to send a scientific group represent· ing the Danish Government to the Thule J ir Base in order to cooperate with the Disaster C Ontrol Team of the Strategic Air C Ommand and if necessary to carry out independent investigations related to the conse• quences of the B-52 accident The group was primarily assigned the task of finding out whether any Danish citizens had been injured as a direct consequence of the crash or by the subsequent fire either of which might have spread radioactive materials around the point of impact and in case of such injury to arrange at once for appropriate measures The ultimate goal of the mission was to assure that no harm could possibly occur to the population living in the area neither immediately nor in the future The vanguard of the Danish Scientific Group consisted of the following radiation experts Henry L Gj6rup Director of the Health Physics Department Danish AEC Per Grande Director of the Radiation Hygiene Laboratory National Health Service of Denmark Professor Otto Kofoed-Hansen Director of the Physics Department Danish AEC and Professor J«gen Koch C Ounsellor to the National Health Service of Denmark Representing the Greenland administration the Group was joined by Hans J Lassen Head of Department Ministry for Greenland It was originally planned to use the regular SAS flight bound for Thule on Wednesday 24 January but due to bad weather conditions departure was delayed until the next day This delay enabled the members of the group to attend a meeting on Thursday morning with The Honorable Carl Walske Assistant to the U S Secretary of Defense for Atomic Energy who had come to Copenhagen in order to inform the Danish Govern· ment about the accident The plane arrived in Thule at about 1 30 p m local time and was met by the Danish Liaison Officer Commander Svend Olesen who introduced the members of the Group to the Air Base C Ommander Col C Omelius S Dresser Representatives of the Danish as well as of the Internationar press arrived aboard the same plane It may be added here that the relationship between the group and the press was taken care of by Kaj Johansen Deputy Permanent Under Secretary of State for Press and Information Ministry for Foreign Affairs In a meeting which was convened immediately upon landing Commander Olesen informed the O nish deleSI cl dog1 on tlle ' Ice o nlancler In dotal cl Oft lfle NO ice JAN FEB MAR 1970 gation about the events which had taken place since the B 52 plane crashed on the ice As soon as it became known that the bomber was carrying nuclear weapons the potential radiation danger from the spread of plutonium had been recognized Commander Olesen and Police Inspector F Skov had been active in the organization of an operation to warn the small number of Greenlanders hunting in the Bylot Sound The search itself was carried out by Jens Zinglersen head of the trade station at Dundas together with a few Greenlanders equipped with dogsleds who combed the area and asked the hunters to visit the air base in order to be tested for radioactivity A dramatic situation occurred during this meeting A telephone call revealed that a Greenlander Jessi Kujaukitsok living in a hut at Narssarssuk had approached the fire as near as possible in order to look for survivors finding nobody he had returned to Narssarssuk without having been checked for radioactivity A helicopter was started right away to clear up the situation A search for radioactivity in the hut gave a negative result and a few hours later when Jessi Kujaukitsok together with his dogs arrived at the decontamination station it was ascertained that they too were chian Consequently already a few hours after heir arrival the members of the group felt convinced that no injury had occurred to Danish citizens as a direct result of the accident This impression was later fully confinned by careful tests of the uptake of radioactivity in the body of the persons concerned was assigned to the group for assistance in the daily work The information given to the Danish group upon arrival was confirmed next day by visiting the crash scene Messrs Gjttup and Koch were brought to the site by General Hunziker and they were escorted on their 3hour tour by two members of the Disaster Control Team Due to the fact that a layer of clean finn snow had been blown over the area the participants returned without being contaminated to any significant degree Meteorolog i cal data collected at the local station showed thJ1t the heavy storms_ phases -which occur frequently in this part of the Arctic-are generally blowing snow from the ice cap westwards into the By lot Sound Transfer of radioactivity from the crash scene to the air base and to Dundas therefore seemed to be very unlikely This information together with the fact that the U S t a m s were picking up radioactive debris indteatel at the situation was well under control On Sunday 28 January it was established beyond any doubt that all four bombs had disintegrated following the impact oq the ice The possibility that at least one of the bombs might have passed through the hole in the ice to the bottom of the Bylot Sound was thereby definitely excluded With this background in mind the Danish Scientific Group felt that it was justified to concentrate its main effort on the question related to the radiation levels outside the immediate crash area since considerable Later in the afternoon H Davis Bruner Assistant amounts of microscopic particles covered with plutoDirector Division of Biology and Medicine AEC nium might have been injected into the atmosphere md Washington and Wright H Langham Group Leader settled down on the shorelines of the Bylot Sound or Biomedical Research Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory even further away or radioactivity might have bN n whJ had just arrived from the United States came to deposited in the seawater from where it via biol 1ul · discuss the situation with the Danish Group and soon materials could enter the food chain It was realiz afterwards the head of the operation Maj Gen Richard that it would be necessary as soon as possible 10 nan 0 Hunziker joined the meeting The General gave an long-range planning for the measurements of the spn-ad exhaustive description of the situation However due of radioactivity in order to take care of any eventuahrv to bad weather conditions not too many details could As a preliminary precaution it seemed necessanr 10 be given but air photographs revealed that aircraft warn the population against the potential danger of debris were spread over a drop-shaped area of approxientering into the neighborhood of the crash scene On mately 750 x 150 m• and survey measurements indicated Monday 29 January an announcement was issue-d bv that the major part of radioactivity was confined to this Kaj B Beck Head of the municipality at Qanaq thearea and partly fixed to the aircraft debris 1nis infor- __ Reverend Erling Hcegh Chairman of the Gree-nland mation was also given at the press meeting which was National Council and Claus Bornemann Governor of held later in the evening - Greenland whereby it was prohibited to stay or ' -n A close cooperation between the Danish Group and to pass the area defined by the following geograph ul the SAC Disaster Control Team was thus established • locations Manson Islands Mount Dundas AlanKtJ from the very beginning The spirit of joint effort was suk and Inersussat At the same time - wamm• •u underlined by quartering the group in a large office issued against the collection of materials of uni no n located in the Base Service Club next door to the headorigin souvenirs By request about a week later 11 n quarters of the operation The members of the Danish decided that hunting of foxes and ravens should I» proGroup had unlimited access to the headquarters during hibited due to the fact that these animals are inclm -d to the entire operation Furthermore the Air Attache of pick up all kinds of materials and to travel rar ilround the U S Embassy in Copenhagen Col Redgely Kemp - in the country These ·restfictions were gradual · r was seconded to support the Danish Group A secretary laxed and finally cancelled as the clean-up opttnt1on USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY 43 - -- ' J -- -- - 7 tific a suppiif 'l'e9 Copenexperts hagen ay 30 arrived in Thu e B -ge Fristrup'J G t University of Copenhagen Poul M tlesen Biology Hermann Greenland Fishing Investigt fiin nt - InvestigaOceanography Danish Fishing tion and Christian Vibe Zool Un ersitf of Copenhagen A J 11@ drom their s fiek of •petence these sci are intima iliar wi the u ea around and they weh • tlus able to give advice on a nu - · · · rtinent questions At the sa r f ° me two radiation experts were added to the group Leif L6vborg and Emil S6rensen both members of the scientific staff of the Research Establishto the ment Ris6 Lt Col Otto Krarup Chief of Staff _ lsla' t •q_ r _ of Greer land had arri ' t'L a few days ear1ie from S6ndre Stromfjord r '- i Evidently it was of primary importance to make the newcomers acquainted with the location and conditions of the crash site by personal inspection Already from their first visit on the ice it was possible by observ_ation of the size form and position JIJe-ke blocks at 'the point of impact to confirm sition-deduced from infrared photographs-that the 80 cm thick ice had been broken up in an area approximately 50' m in diameter Consequently the presence of radioactive aircra4_debrifQn ttom of the bay ad to be taken into com on · As-a result of the series of plenary meetings ith the participation of the U S representatives Mr Bruner Dr Langham Mr WoUe and all members of the Danish scientific group-it was decided that further investigased on the following tions by the Group should topics • · _ · 1 Collection of a serieJ Jlf _samples of snow and ice i s outside the point of from representa impact e g nes and the ice of • Bylot Sound fw • _· · ndilundas includmg the water rese ·_ _ · pl should stiU't at the points whic ·- ·- eorological calcu1ations seem Nf -li niost heavily contaminated - - _ c t - • 2 llection of w tomsiµnples speci lly with regard to b1olog matetlils which might go into the food chaiti i _ 3 Collection of speclnaem of ·wildlife such as walrus seals and foxes which a se d in the household of the Greenlanders Ji ·t · 4 Evaluation of the ite cimdWons in rder to enable planning for the ricQv ery--at contiuiunated ice and snow and to judge- f f hger wh might arise fro' ' th d iff of CO lta iijJted i uring the following sprmg 5 · 5 Preparation for a summer expedition with the purpose of checking the region around the entire Wolstenholme Fjord for remaining plutonium After having participated in the work for about 1 week Mr Bruner Dr Langham Mr blfe and Mr Kofoed-Hansen left Thule In order to preserve contact between the U S and the Danish scientists which had turned out to be so advantageous for carrying out the investigations a meeting was held on Sunday 4 February in which a representation of the U S health physics team headed by Col Jack C Fitzpatrick Field Command Surgeon of the Defense Atomic Support Agency and all remaining members of the Danish group took part At that time contour lines of the spread of plutonium had been roughly determined by gamma ray measurements using the FIDLER instruments which had promptly been sent to Thule On this basis it was possible t condu realistic discussions _on the clean-up operation Details of the above menboned measuring program were also discussed A briefing was given in the meeting hall of the Danish Construction Corporation DCC in order to inform the members of the Danish community who at that time were engaged in civil work at the Thule Air Base more than 1 000 people about the consequences of the B-52 crash Contact was hereby established between the DCC personnel and the health physicists from Ris6 who later ' ere stationed o' shift in Thule during the entire period of the operation Pacer Goose On invitation from Mr Beck and other members of the Qanaq Community Council a few members of the Danish Scientific Group went to Qanaq by helicopter in order to brief the local Greenland population about the situation After having stayed in Thule for about 2 weeks the Danish Scientific Group felt that its primary mission had been completed On Wednesday 6 February Messrs Fristrup Grande Hansen Lassen and Koch returned to C Openhagen A press meeting was arranged at the airport and it was a relief for all that the situation could be described in reassuring terms although a number of problems were still not fully explored The remaining members of the group stayed another ·--· week Messrs Hermann and Vibe collected a series of - _ sam les of seawater nd biological materials Mr Gjorup contmued the surveillance of plutonium and organized • the health physics duties which should be carried out during the forthcoming months by his ca lleagues from Riso coming to replace him Other articles detail the work carried out by the Danish Scientific Group during its initial stay in T hule and the subsequent months until the operation was called off The activity of the group in connection with ·the summer expedition is described later in th is publication 44 JAN FEB MAR 1970 I field monitoring problems Darkness brittle elecrrical cables and bitter cold t eriol photograph of the cra h ue Uc p1tc th • e proh t m racliat1on dt•IP 11011 equipme nt a ul'cc htll ' 11 ed ut T h u le 111d till' dat t oh1ai1wd playccl 1 key rnk• in the opt·r tti 11 1 h1 11 r 1·ati e describes the cope ol radioll1g ical 111011ito r in -i JI Thnk• the inslrunwnh u sed a nd him· tlu ·y pc r tormt• I ENVIRONMENTAL SURVEYS l'lw in itial reconnaissance team established the pn• t•rK ' t plutonium contamination the next task then • dL'lenn i11e the degree of contamination and hm ·t di pcr cd The material was largely bound u p u 1 th i n frolcn crust or blackened ice containing tlw r ·-•· due of a fuel fire some unburned JP-4 and v ern·1 tll 'h ri-i lso an arctic storm occurred after the an icll' 1t 111d r o 'crcd some of the surface contamination h fn· 1 1 110 1'- Since alpha particles will not pene1ratt 1 1hi 11 l 1ycr or snow or ice an alpha survey under 1h - rnnditions would have been meaningle ss 111 I 1 INITIAL RECONNAISSANCE rhc tirst JCtual monitorin at T hu le was Kcompli ht·d h ' t m dl rcconnai sa11ce team of fi n people The team size 1 ·as limited ll · the onh· mode of transportation to the site a ·ailah lt· It that timc - fiq ' du • lc ds ·ith C n enlandcr clri ·crs Their mon i torin ohjccll 'C ' IS t1rnfolcl tl to assure by the absence uf ti siun pn clu t bcta- amma radi ition that there had bt 'en no nuclear contribution to the accident and l2 to d1t·1 k tor the prt• t·ncc of plutonium contamination The lt• 1111 tllok with them an ' 1 PDR-2i and a P -- C-IS Tlw ' ' l'IH -17 i till' t mdard low-ranie beta-gamma rnr t ·1· mt ler u cd b · the l ' S militar v ser 'iccs This is J 1 ci-' Icl1l1 •r 11· 11ume J1t-witq a ° ' ¥ i J m rite P lS i - the__ ta'1 du - - · iridb t S Air I·• rtl' rlpii • ''l c •· · ' · ice sulphide intilt it lnn 'Q f nttlli t ' u n_b t•i ll I lf P Tqb e r a a 01 · ll 1 tre _of l 8 • · - • Bo J_i i11 tr _ erati J ijlLjJe T - 't rlval a t h · cmh ITe I _ • J l Ut 'i _ i 'W i t11d the mercu - - i fA Jhs P 5 SQW l- Iail Ill ' C'Xtrc me cold f- lO f eithe tlcr is i- Aif v- i _ i lit•lo ·o·f Ouri i -the sh n-t fil lijl fod·rio bei'a · 1mm i--ftldi 1tioi1 was detc tc f 'e PµR'-2 how• 'I u i11 tnc P C -l 1 · dcsµi -ead4 lphll'«tt talll ination t·le ll'd Oil thC' tirTace-uh he now ice and aircraft d t·hri 46 JAN FEB MAR 0 7 • -- the •ere din ince here 1eck ucks lS at lice ems ·con• and td to 1diaand 1eral nish pro vipe onal This proiate and in1ort ctor the be ·onind 20 n lly ry Oe tnd lue ike 'aS he ew ber on he or a 10· or l5 '0 FIDLER FIDLER detedor with lhermol insulation Low-energy gamma and X rays are associated with field its performance was satisfactory Laboratory and the alpha decay o the fissionable materials used in field testing had shown that the PRM-5 electronics were nuclear weapons For example plutonium 239 emits a temperature dependent i e the proper operating 17KEV X ray and americium 241 emits a somewhat voltage would change with the temperature constronger 60KEV gamma ray Americium 241 is a sequently the instrument had to be calibrated and daughter product of plutonium 241 which is normally adjusted in the field after at least a 30-minute cold soak present as an impurity in plutonium 239 Therefore After the instrument was calibrated experiments the americium content is a function o the age of the were performed to determine snow attenuation data and material and the original Pu 241 content Since X and the optimum photon energy to monitor-the single gamma radiations will penetrate a thin snow or ice channel analyzer permits discrimination of all but the cover an instrument that would be sensitive to these desired photon energy The americium 60KEV photons emissions would be very useful produced better instrument sensitivity therefore 60PAC-lS AGA instruments with PG-1 gamma scinKEV was chosen for survey work Attenuation e xperitillation probes capable of detecting these low energy ments showed that 6 inches of snow would reduce the emissions were available but this type of instrument 60KEV photon intensity about a lactor of 2 was designed to be a detector only and would not proAfter this preliminary testing the hrst area survey vide quantitative results Also this instrument has a was conducted Since the data was urgently needed and high background count so fairly large concentrations the weatherman was predicting another storm a simple of plutonium would be necessary before the material 30°radial survey was decided upon A center point was could be detected For these reasons this instrument established and a crude transit was constructed to was not used keep the survey on line The survey team consisted of Soon after the accident the Lawrence Radiation Labfour men-an instrument operator a recorder a transit oratory at Livermore California volunteered an instruman and an operator's assistant to relay data via radio ment they had been testing The instrument was called to the recorder pace ofl distances and carry a lantern the FIDLER - an acronym for Field Instrument for so that the survey team could be seen and guided by Detection of Low Energy Radiation As the name imthe transit man plies the instrument would detect low-energy X or For survey work the PRM-5 was strapped around gamma radiations Crom plutonium and americium · the operator's neck to hang about chest height and the moreover the instrument readout could be related to • detector was carried like a bucket of water at the calisurface area contamination through a somewhat unique • bration height of 12 inches above the ground The de· calibration procedure tector weighed about _1 l pounds and the PR l-5 only The instrument consists of a PR -1-5 a small single • 5¼ pounds but after se ·eral hours of use they seemed Channel analyzer and a scintillation detector The much heavier A flashlight was also suspended from the detector is a 1 16-inch thick Nal Tl crystal 5 inches in operator's neck to illuminate the meter since a bu ilt -in diameter coupled to a 5-inch photomultiplier tube lamp is not provided in the PR l-5 The instrument through a quartz light pipe The instrument was modihad to be readjusted periodically to keep the electro nics fied for arctic use by the addition of an external battery set precisely on the 60KE ' peak This was accomplished pack and thermal insulation around the detector by fine tuning a small high- 'oltage adjustment sere · Two days were spent testing the instrument in the ·· on thePRM-5with a tiny screwdriver - a real tri k 'hile USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY 47 hoconto11 111op of plulo11l11111 co11ta1t1inatl011 wearing two or three layers of gloves The PRM-5 has a new type of meter called LINLOG and scale or range switching is not necessary This proved extremely valuable since operating a small-scale or multiplier switch with these gloves on would have been very difficult In spite of these problems the FIDLER performed well and the first survey was completed in 2 days More FIDLERs were ordered but due to a limited supply of PRM-5s and thin 5-inch diameter crystals only three more instruments could be obtained Monitoring teams were trained at Thule to use the FIDLER and the area was resurveyed This time a 30• radial survey was refined by a grid plot with 50-foot centers The survey was accomplished using four instruments simultaneously and was completed in 1 day After normalizing the data from the four instruments considering snow attenuation factors and comparative data from actual snow samples analyzed in a laboratory an isocontour map of the contamination was prepared The FIDLER was used throughout the clean-up operation to detect ·'hot spots missed by the snow removal equipment The instrument was also used to monitor the tank farm storage area for spills and to conduct the final grid survey of the crash site after the cleanup The final survey indicated that 93 per cent of the radioactive material was removed from the decontaminated area Besides these instrument surveys a great deal of environmental data was obtained through the labora• tory analysis of snow and ice samples Samples wt r submitted to the USAF Radiological Health Laboratory Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and Lawrence Radia• ti on Laboratory A great deal of attention was focu on the immediate impact area where the ice had actualh· broken To gain information about the distribution ol the contamination in this area over 150 ice core sampll' were taken A crude field method was developed to rn 1lyze these cores using the PRM-5 analyzer P -1 detector and a homemade scanner The ice cores '·ere placed in a wooden box and using a piece of lead - 11h a 1-inch slit as a collimator the entire length of th• core was scanned at 1-inch inten als The 'ni thod 'H calibrated by comparing scan data with laboraton analyses of a few ice cores Ice core data proved 1h u significant contamination had not penetrated tht 1ft' and that only a small percentage of the total contan11n a tion was trapped in the ice at the impact point Tritium was detected in some of the snow and 1 f' 48 JAN FEB MAR 1970 samples submitted to stateside laboratories Although this did not indicate a significant hazard laboratory equipment capable of analyzing snow and urine samples was quickly dispatched to Thule A Tri-Carb liquid scintillation counter and operators were furnished by the Sandia Corporation at Livermore California Use of this equipment idc indeed prove that the tritium present was not a haJl rd to ''Crested Ice personnel since insignificant amounts of tritium were detected in urine samples taken on location A new type of tritium detector was used to monitor tiff second phase of the operations at Thule i e the transfer of the melted contaminated snow from the large 25 000-gallon storage tanks at Thule to smaller 1 800gallon containers prior to shipment to the States in the summer This instrument the T446 Tritium Alarm Monitor recently developed by Sandia Laboratories is a portable instrument comprised of a flow-throu ith ion chamber and a vibrating reed electrometer The instrument also has a urinalysis capability the T449 Radiological Urinalyses Kit The T449 uses a disposable gas generator cartridge to liberate hydrogen tritium gas from the urine sample calcium reduction reaction The gas is then analyzed by the T446 No tritium hazard was detected during this phase of the operation using the T446 T449 Several buildings at Thule were used for decontamination purposes and one was used to package recovered weapon components These buildings were continuously monitored by swipe sampling and with PAC-lS instruments PAC-lS instruments were also used to monitor all tanks or drums containing recovered aircraft debris or contaminated snow and ice No instrumentation problems were encountered in these programs Many air samples were taken at Thule to evaluate the airborne hazards associated with operations such as contaminated snow removal and delivery to the storage area personnel and equipment decontamination etc A hi-volume sampler was used- both l IOV AC and 24V DC models were available Air sample results indicated that resuspension of plutonium was not a problem Drllllng for Ice core Ice core fro• i111pad areo PERSONNEL AND EQUIPMENT MONITORING A personnel decontamination station was established i n a vacant barracks building that contained hot running water and show er facilities Alpha contamination limits ai measured by a PAC-IS were established at 450 cpm on- U S personnel and none detectable on foreign J tionals No beta-gamma contamination was detected on the initial reconnaissance team using the AN PDR27 and the absence of a nuclear yield was verified by field measurements therefore beta-gamma personnel monitoring was unnecessary This personnel decontamination center grew into a sizable operation with 12 monitors processing up to 200 people a day A second decontamination station was established at the site for gross work such as removal of an ticontamination of ltodlologlcol 111onlloring with flDLElt 49 T «6 Tritlu• al•• ■onltor clothing gloves booties etc Nasal swabs were also included as part or the personnel monitoring routine These sw b results were used as a ro g ndicatgr_of itpy airt o e azar l and in general revt fec _2 _o able activit However• 1ince most everyone's riose ran profusely m 11'iis climate there was a re_a sonab'k oou t as to the validity e this ch lc faerything from aogFab dog sleds tt iO'ton trucks leaving the'crasJ site was monitored with i -PAC-1S al an exit control pofni If possible all loose ¥ ow and ice was remm ' 4 d before the item was M ll-ilo d Jtems found contamJn ted were labeled and sent to a decontamination t•t-ion -on baie where the fwere washed and monitored again after a drying period Surfaces had to be dry sin any moisitl e_ VOUld mask the alpha radiation Swipe_ sampl la were alSQ taken on vehicles and equipment before the item would be released for general use ContaminatiQltJjmjts er d upon by Danish and U S authorjttea 41 1 · _The USAF R aclio1ogiµl Health La j tory provided a capability to O l t nll 81 swa air and swipe samples locally Three gas flow internal proportional counters were set up in the Thule Qw ensary This laboratory equipment pro d quite beneficial in prov id ing quick results neeaed to make immediate judgments · The PAC- 1S was sat'isfa-«ory for personoel and equipment monitoring considering the problems in• herent to any alpha detector For example the short range of alpha particles requires that an alpha detector be plac not more than one-eighth of an inch from the surface to be monitored and direct contact has to be avoided to prevent the probe face from becoming contaminated or punctured Due to contaminated and puncturt cf probe faces·or other malfunctions up to 20 instruments were required for a full day's operation False readings on the PAC-1 S occurred occasionally Static disch_a rges were guite Cflmmon in this cold dry climate this was particularly noticeable since everyone wore arctic clothing made of a mixture of wool and rayon It was thought that these false readings were due to this static discharge when the detector would make contact with items being monitored lf a reading was due to this phenomenon and not contamination the meter reading would return to background after a few · seconds This did not create a serious monitoring prob Jem as long as technicians were briefed on the matter T446 trltlu111 alar• 111anltor with T-4-49 urlnaly ls kit attached _ 44 -- annal •onltorlq ot ni alatltlelt •toftOlt · _ 'f - • - • - i- _r- - - Naacil swabt were included In the anonn ' onliwfat- utfne 1 WEAPONS RECOVERY Still another application of radiac ii is_trumentation was employed at Thule The PRM-5 analyzer and the SPA-3 scintillation detector were used in search £or weapons components The SPA-3 detector contains a 2x2-inch Na Tl crystal coupled to a 2-inch photomultiplier tube This device is particularly suited for -detecting 185KEV gamma rays from the uranium 2 15 used in various weapon components so JAN FEB MAR 1970 I I PMR-5 with SPA-3 SPA-3 probe1 on the wea1el Although searching by walking and hand-carrying the instrument proved to be the most effective technique other methods such as suspending the detector from a helicopter and mounting the detectors on a surface vehicle were tried In the helicopter and vehiclemounted techniques the instrument's power supply had to be increased because of excessive voltage drops caused by longer electrical cables Other instrument problems were caused by vehicle vibration and noise interference Thule immediately after the accident This proved invaluable to the operation as instrument_repairs and modifications were numerous ' At the peak of the activity approximately 70 PAC-1S instruments four FIDLERS and three PRM-5 SPA-3 combinations were being maintained The instrument repair group expanded to four Air Force civilian technicians working two 12-hour shifts A technician from the Lawrence Radiation taboratory· t Livermore California assisted with the PRM-5s and FIDLERs EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE SUMMARY - - In the past experience had clearly demonstrated requirements for additional radiac instruments and an on-scene instrument repair capability to support operations Within this concept three air-transportable radiac packages were developed for response to this type of emergency The air-transportable packages were designed to be self-sufficient each contained 15 complete PAClS two PDR-27 and two PDR-43 instruments high-range beta-gamma survey meter Spare parts and the tools and test equipment necessary for the maintenance of these instruments were included Two civilian electronics technicians with one of these packages were dispatched from the San Antonio Air Materiel Area to Almo5t every phase pf the o ·r atfons af- Thule depended on radiological monitoring results The conditions at Thule creatt d many problems in obtaining accurate radiologic J··daii botJi jfter a few equipment modifications and-ihe use of w· instrumentation but the necessary infonnation was gathered The most siP ifitant a speg _of radiological monitor• ing at Thule was the use ol a gamma detector the FIDLER for area survey Undoubtedly the addition of this iruJlnlment to our kit repre$ents a sizable contri bution to the tools of the trade however there will always be t i'equireinent for alpha rvey meters such as the PAC-1S _for equipmell lind·personnel menitoring - - r- t Air-transportable rodloc package USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY __ _ · ' ln1id• the oir-tran1portabl• radioc pockoge 51 - • • -- 4 FIDLER_ A r ·· · ON THE ··• ' ROOF OF THE WORLD JAMES BECKER end GARY SHAW Lawrence Radiation Laboratory University of Callfornl■ Uvermore Callfornla URING the search and recovery phase of Project DCrested Ice a team of scientists and technicians from A flOlll c111e111bly co11wrted for field vse 111 tho arctic · land The men were Nathan Benedict weapon engineer and member of LRL's Hot Spot Emergency•Response Team and Dr Joseph Tinney a member of LRL's Hazards Control Staff and the physicist in charge of developing FIDLER Because of its importance in getting LRL involved in Project Crested Ice in the first place we will pause here to explain what FIDLER is and how it came to be The development or FIDLER was prompted by the incident at Palomares Spain in 1966 Although LRL did not participate in the Palomares cleanup operations our Hazards Control people became aware of the difriculties experienced by the Disaster Response Force in locating and measuring plutonium contamination from the debris covered by sand and water Clearly there was a need for a portable instrument that could easily detect and measurf' pluton ium deposit ion under adverse conditions Alpha counters which are routinely used for this purpose are quite adequate when the contami riating debris is exposed If the debris is even shallowly buried however alpha detection is seriously compromised as alpha particles are not very penetrating Plutonium emits low-energy X rays which are far more penetrating than alpha particles While these X rays are of such low intensity that they are relatively insignificant biologically they may be detected using a suitable sensitive de t tor ln p articular an X-ray detector should be able to-measure contamination that t uld be invisible to an alpha detector Thus scienti of LRL's Hazards Control Department undertook to develop a portable instrument for measuring plut nium deposition that operated on the princi le of X•ray detection rather thart a_lpha detection ·· The result FJDµ R is basically a sod_ium-iodide scintillator about 5 -inches in di metE f and 1 16-inch thick coupled tQ i ph O ° lti J er h tbe _ I he si al produced when X rays strilte the scmt1llator 1s amphfted by the pl otomultipJft r ncf fed to a portable analyzer and count-rate f- _ · At the time of the Thule crash the prototype the University of California Lawrence Radiation Laboratory hereafter referred to as LRL advised and aided the Air Force Disaster Response Force in locating and measuring the plutonium contamination and packaging the contaminated debris Besides the crew at Thule the Laboratory's facilities at Livermore California participated by analyzing data and testing materials that wer-e sent down from the site Administratively the LRL team at the crash site was assigned to the American Scientific Group Two LRL men - Walter Bennett head of the Hazards Control Department and James Olsen of the Director's office served successive terms as on-site scientific advisors to Maj Gen Richard O Hunziker the On-Scene Commander From the first arrival to the last departure LRL personnel were at Thule for a total of about 6 weeks They worked closely with the Scientific Group and helped the Radiological Monitoring Team in data evaluation sampling sample counting electronic J aintenance and in several other areas where they could make a contribution LRL became involved in Project Crested Ice via a roundabout route As one of this country's major weapon laboratories LRL was immediately notified that an accident involving nuclear weapons had Since the nuclear bombs aboard the downed B-52 were not of LRL design we had no direct responsibility in early recovery efforts But we did have something of value to add to the operation-a staff of experts specifically trained to deal with such nuclear emergencies and a portable scintillation counter called FIDLER Field Instrument for Detection of Low Energy Radiation specifically designed to rapidly survey large areas for plutonium contamination We promptly notified the Air Force through the Joint Nuclear Accident Coordinating Committee that FIDLER was available an invitation was extended by the Strategic Air Command SAC on 24 January and within 4 hours two men and two FIDLERs were on their wav from California to Green52 JAN FEB MAR 1970 FIDLER had been successfully tested at Livermore and under desert conditions at the Atomic Energy Commission's Nevada Test Site but it had never been tested under conditions anything like those found in Greenland in January Still we felt that an X-ray detector like FIDLER would have a better chance of success under the arctic conditions than alpha counten would particularly since much of the debris was covered with snow and ice in the 4 hours that elapsed between our receipt of the invitation from SAC and the departure of Benedict and Tinney for Thule personnel of the Hazards Control Department converted two prototype laboratorymodel FIDLERs into instruments suitable for field use in the arctic Basically this conversion involved ruggedizing the units against the shocks of transportation and handling and providing for operation in the severe cold For example the battery packs were separated from the rest of the assemblies so that they could be kept warm under the monitors' parkas The illustration shows the converted FIDLER When Ber edict and Tinney arrived at Thule only a few davs after the crash the crash site was still in a primitiv state -the support facilities consisted f a wooden shack and the only light available at that tirile of year came from Coleman lanterns The prospect as Joe Tinney described it was depressing But with the cooperation ancl support of the AirJ orce Disaster Respome Force -Benedict and Ti9n•t• aged to calibrate their FIJ atiori through various thicknesse of f tiow improvisejefflniques uxiliary equipmem d start alting aningful m ments of plutonium contamination -• - side from the natural diffif ntt n of the site other problems- soon arose' that w r_e Y ey n morC l riticaL For ins anc e wbere in Gree do you find spare parts for a uni9ue l Dd very_delJ _ • _ i c instrument Wber obtaiaa z of just_the right size Where do y -- when it needs servicing A · • - ·- ' mic port Agency Nude - · · · been air1ifted to Thule on the Cl4l t1i i' Mivered the Air Force's Air Transportable Radiac Package lATRAP with its adequate supply cSl the standard a JDeters spare parts and mainten facilities P prepositioned by the San Ai tonio Air Materi Area at Kellv AFB included a staffiof maintenance personnel who· were equipped to mafntain standar diation detection instruments butfQiere was no store of general testing and repairing pment So Benedict' and Tinney had to live by tliel wits until Don les an LRL el trical technician arrived with testing equipment · apare parts and two additional FID R units Wits still came in handy however since it was necessary to innovate and improvise in order to cope with the unanticipated conditions that always plague field operations can USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY - Besides the initial work with the FIOLERs in locating and measuring contamination at the crash site the LRL team rendered important services in conne ion with the packaging of the contaminated ice snow and debris As the material was initially deposited in drums and tanks each container had to be assayed to make sure that the aggregate of fissile material could not create a critical configuration under any condition the packages might encounter Even more important was the need to be absolutely certain that later when the blackened ice crust was loaded into the 25 000-gallon tanks and melted a critical mass could not be accumulated One member of the LRL team Milan Knezevich addressed himself to this criticality problem He estimated the accumulation of fissile material bv monitoring the radiation e itted from each containe To assist and double-check his work criticality experts at both Los Alamos Scientific Laboratorv and LRL made calcu• lations and measurements on samples of i nown sizes and shapes By relating all the information that 'ould be obtained from the crash site to the data furnished by the laboratories the Disaster Response Force was able to establish packaging specifications for precluding a criticality accident The huge 25 000-gallon fuel tanks that were used as the interim repositories for the debris presented 50me ticklish problems of their own For example were the tanks strong enough to be lifted and handled after the · were filled or would they break open Again I RI ' Livermore facility helped to solve the problem D 11 1 from the tank manufacturer's- tags and the ph y SH 11 measurements of the tanks were sent to Livermore With this information the original specifications for the tank wereobwned from the manufacturer and handlinJi te 1 • wfl'e run on-mock-ups Samples of metal from the tanki were also sent to Livermore for metallurgical analv The information from these tests furnished the D tt'r •Respon - 1 rce with a sound basis for evaluating nw of the efillieering problems involved in packa in11 JOd transporting the debris Thus I Rl's participation in Project Crested le ' Ifft' from a- l gin ing into a diverse effort in ·oh 1n _ me and e quipmen _ oth at the crash site and 1 1 l 1 r tPore - at LlU are g d to have been able to ht lp th•· · Air Force· in-this sensitive operation ind we r-1 th 'the experience we gained at Thule is invaluable r- - -_ _ · _ - L w ' I Puel tanks In hangar being rnodlfted for 53 i•• contain•rs 1 I USAF UOIOLOIICIL HEALTH lllORITORY SUPPORT COL LAWRENCE T ODLAND MD USAF Radlologlcal Health Laboratory Wright-Petterson AFB Ohio INTRODUCTION and on-site staff were conducted by telephone on a daily basis early in the operation and then weekly as progress continued However queries concerning sampling procedures supply sources laundry services and permissible radioactive levels were usually answered the same day as received Many times the formation of answers required library research and the Laboratory staff provided this service Five staff members-two officers health physicists one civilian electronic engineer and two airmen a Preventive Medicine Technician and a Radioisotope Laboratory Technician from the Laboratory-were deployed to the site in support of the operation In aggregate this time totalled 220 days including the periods when contaminated waste was removed from Thule during which a health physicist provided 45 days of on-site consultation services The enlisted men processed samples and operated the counting equipment as well as assisting with other details as required Electronic maintenance support was provided by the engineer A health physicist served on the staff of the On-Scene Commander during the phase of operations directed by the Strategic Air Command team His duties included monitoring the crash site for contamination vels supervising procedures for decontamination of rsonnel and equipment advising on hazards and practicability of various proposals for waste dis•posal and conducting such special studies as were necessary to answer operational problems • 0 N 22 January 1968 the day after the accident the USAF Radiological Health Laboratory prepared and shipped its first lot of supplies to support the Stn · tegic Air Command's Disaster Control Team operations on-site As investigation of the crash proceeded and the extent of radioactive contamination became better defined more definitive Laboratory support re tuirements evolved ON-SITE SUPP ORT I I I The Laboratory provided four categories of on-site support materiel equipment consultation services and personnel Materials requested wen varied in kind and amount-from three rolls of masking tape to 10 000 envelopes for swipe samples Containers for ice cores swipes and urine samples were the most aitical items since few or no comparable items were available locally The Laboratory however maintairu large inventories of all materials needed by field personnel u part of its Broken Arrow response posture Experi nce during Palomares and Thule proved the value of this -stock piling because it permits on-site officials one sour_i e for nearly all emergency medical supplies Thus pipeline time is limited only by transportation capabilities Equipment deployed to Thule consisted of three gasflow proportional alpha counten and gas cylinden This equipment was not designed for portability and field use however as a result of the experience gained during Crested Ice the Laboratory designed a portable and automatic counting system in the event the field requirement should be levied again An additional feature of the new system will be the use of solid-state detectors thereby eliminating the need for transportation and resupply of heavy bulky gas cylinders _Consultation services between the Laboratory staff IN-HOUSE LABORATORY SUPPORT In this as in all other events of an emergency nature where Radiological Health Laboratory support is re• quired the entire staff and capability of the organization were placed at the disposal of the Strategic Air Command needs This was a professional technical and 54 JAN FEB MAR 1970 I administrative starf of 32 individuals and over one-half million dollars of laboratory equipment and supplies Initially the work load was insignificant but as clean-up procedures started samples increased enormously During one week nearly 2 000 samples were processed-a fi ure lO times that routinely completed All material processed on site at Thule was reanalyzed at the Laboratory to permit preparation of permanent records for computer processing and as a quality control procedure In addition it was essential that the practicability of field analyses be evaluated for accuracy In many cases we found duplication of sample numbers ind incomplete sample identification data These deficiencies were corrected by telephone with officials at ·nrnte The Laborato 1' also sen•ed us the personnel contact agency for submission of urine samples From the Palomares accident we learned that urine samples routinely collected at the scene for later plutonium analyses were often contaminated with minute amounts of the isotope thus it was necessary to resample individuals after their return to base of assignment As a daily screening procedure at Thule nasal swipes were taken and immediately analyzed Rosters of personnel participating in Crested Ice were prepared at Thule along with a letter to the in_diviclual ad ·ising him of the requirement to submit a -thour urine specimen to the Laboratory for analysis upon returning to his base of assignment The Labora• tory served us a clearing center to insure that e_ach individual submitted the-required a' ple and of course conducted the nalyses In-house analytical services provided results urine samples for plutonium 25 Pu and tritium j'H gross alpha counts on nasal and surface swipe samples specific analyses-for certain nuelides in water soil rock snow plankton dog hair and air Over 20 000 separate samples were processed between 22 January and 1 September 1968 --' l ' O-ntamlnotioll-1 llorint llam fs of clobtl1 on r Robort Farr Eloctrtaii · Technlcion ancl TSgt DOllald hdy proconing na1al 1wipo 1omplos ··· USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY SMSgt lealy G ludor and Kenneth llockbufil begin Initial 110 1 In fho procotting of urine 1omplo1 in tho loborolo y ot Wrlghl Polt•non AFI Ohio 55 The results of till' ' anah·se ire a tribute to the outstandin pro rum cle i llel·I and impkmented In· the On-Scene Commander and his t ifT The nearly $00 urine amples ·ere uniformly free of mpu indicatin that no purticip mt in the oper 1tio11 was internally contaminated with this radic acti ·c material Each ample was iho anulnccl for tritium The hi hest value found ·as l 9x 10 • l uries Studies ha ·e sho 'n ·alue as high as lOxlO • 1n• of 110 ig nificancc insolar as a health haz inl i concernecl Of c· ·en g rcater ignificance are the re ults uf the 11 1 sal ·ipes Only J 5¾ of the 10 000 analyzed hm ·ed any cll•teuable alpha actiYity The high · t ' due louncl ·a O x W 12 curies The ··action len•I'' or point wh1 re inwrnal l'ontamin Hion hazard becomes ig nificant is lll lx Ill curies Bagged and baud ice cores ready lor shipment Orni hundred and ten water amples were tuclied for plutonium and tritium -lfodO ·' cunc per li wr of plutonium and 626x 10 • curies per liter for tritium ·ere found These samples Wl'l'e gathered from kno ·11 areas of contamination and the result ·ere pro ·iclcd a adcli tional data upon which to base operational decisions O ·er 5 300 surface swipes were taken from 'chides work areas containers etc The highest le 'el ol acti ·ity of alpha particles detected wa U OOOx 10 •1 curies Action le ·els were set at OOx 10 iz Jnd clecontaminatibR teams took necessary steps to dean up tlw contaminated surfaces Air sample ·ere taken throu hout tlw operation to insure safety to personnel One hundred and sc 'l•ntynine such samples were analyzed The hi hest ·alue found was 1xl0 curiei per Jlleter' In addition -mis el1 1eous t ype i amples were assayed £or radioactivity Sewage dog hair and plank• ton from the ocean floor showed v rying but insiµ niricant amounts ofaJpha activity mples ol snow hea ·ih· laden with JP--4 contained the - test amoonts of rac ioacti 'e material- 99lxl0-' curi s r li_ter of i i Pu and xlO curies of tritium per liter-wJ°re·detected in some ' of these samples ' · SUMMARY -w t - •c The Crested kCH f e i 1'1 i f d 'i ability of avillj_ witb o t respo capabili y for supplies erv · and personnel able tcftesponcl 111 the event a nu ear accident lji of nasal S 'ipes in lieu of rouiitil n' J ite ui ini' sampling resulted in simplified screeninifw ocie@r95-' iu ene reduced time to feed back re 1til1s_to isi ukiJtJt'level 1 -Qnd permitted orderlv collection of_uncontaminated urine samples far removed from th_e ·en 'iFO ffleU of urgency 1nd expediency that surrourul --0n-site aotivities Deployment of limited Laboratory capability to the scene was very helpful in this case because of the fixed nature of facilities from which operations emanated of use Maj Jo1eplt S Piuuto and helper bag ice cores fa 1hlp111ent 56 JAN FEB MAR 1970 OF HENRY L GJCJRUP at al• Oanl•h Atomic Energy Comml•81on A arch Eatabllah nt RIM witnesses and meteorological and radar observations made at Thule Air Base Professor 0 Kofoed-Hansen concluded that the smoke cloud from the fire had pro ably drifted towards the south and southeast The horizontal extent of the fire was about 800 m and the height of the fire column about 850 m The smoke cloud rose even higher The atmosphere was very stable up to a height of 830 m due to inversion At greater heights up to 2 200 m the thermal stratification was still stable At ground level a slight wind was blowing from the east The wind direction veered counterclockwise with increasing height at 1 000 m it was blowing from the north and at 3 500 m from the west The wind speed was about 3 m sec at all heights Although the finer particles would be carried far away and precipitated in very low probably undetectable concentrations some measurable contamination could be expected in the direction of the hunting huts at Narssarssuk approximately 5 miles south of the crash site where some 15 Greenlanders lived Also some activity from the heavily contaminated blackened area might have been resuspended by the snow storms on 24 and 29 January and carried towards the west in the direction of Saunders Island INTRODUCTION HO RTLY after arrival at the Thule Air Base on S Thursday 25 January 1968 the Danish Scientific Group was informed that the chemical explosives in the four nuclear weapons had detonated in the crash and that their contents of plutonium had been scattered The main concern of the Danish group was of course to estimate the potential hazard to the inhabitants of the Thule region Immediate consideration was given to a dogsled driver Jessi Kujaukitsok who had observed the accident from a position southwest of the crash site and had moved up to a position east of and close to the fire in order to look for survivors As a man of common sense Jessi Kujaukitsok had moved to '-the east of the big fire because the surface wind was blowing westwards however since he had been subject to the risk of contamination he his equipment and his home in Narssarssuk were carefully monitored Results showed they were not contaminated Monitoring of other persons and dogs that had been moving through the area or to and from the crash site during the days after the accident revealed only very slight contamination or none at all It was therefore concluded that the radioactive contamination-mainly plutonium oxide dust resulting from the scattering and burning of plutonium metal in the weapons-was firmly attached to debris and to the crystals of the snow that covered the ice and that there was no immediate risk of trans er of plutonium to the metabolic system of human beings Anyhow the group considered it important to determine the distribution and amount of contamination in the environment and at the crash site in order to evaluate the exposures which might have resulted from ·airborne contamination during the fire and which in the future might result from the introduction of plutonium into the food chain ENVIRONMENTAL SNOW MONITORING The next step was to organize an environmental monitoring program The kitchen of an unused messhall was made available to the Danish group as a la METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS The first step made to obtain a picture of the accident was to study the meteorological conditions at the time of the accident On the basis of interviews with eye Nieb Edvard Bmch Physics Depanment Hans Fl ser Jllrsen Lippert Herben C Raairnbaum and Asker Aarkroc Health Physics Depanmenl Heinz Huuen Medial Laboratory Helmar Kunzendorf and Leif Lllvbors l lecuonia Oepanment Bror Skyue-J ensen and Emil Sorensen Chem buy Depanmen1 USAF NUCLEAR SAFID figure 1 General view of the meu holl ldtchn loboratory 57 ' 1 - oratory Figure 1 and the first snow samples from the ice in the vicinity of Narssarssuk were collected by helicopter on 28 January By very primitive means oral counting of the clicks from an alpha•ratemeter and keeping time with a wristwatch it was established that the snow samples from Narssarssuk contained long-lived alpha activity whereas snow samples from the Thule Air Base contained no activity samples of old snow or only natural activity in the form of radon and thoron daughters drift snow deposited by recent snow storms The laboratory situation was considerably improved when by request additional RistS staff E S6rensen and L LtSvborg arrived on 30 January bringing with them equipment that included a variety of chemicals glassware etc a solid-state alpha detector a scintillation gamma detector a 100-channel pulse-height analyzer a portable single-channel analyzer and two alpha scalers The only thing lacking was suitable evaporation equipment A search in the Base Exchange revealed some Teflon-coated frying pans which proved to be ideal for the purpose They were responsible for the nickname Operation Frying Pan given to the activities of the laboratory It soon turned out that standard analytical procedures were not suited to the actual circumstances and Serensen and Levborg immediarely improvised a simple and adequate analytical procedure The group was further strengthened when Erling Johansen from the Electronics Department and a specialist in environmental monitoring and A Aarkrog arrfred from Ris0 on 12 Februarv L969 The laboratory made it possihle to make quantita• tive measurements The snow sampling was intensified during the first days of February It was carried out in a pattern planned in accordance with the existing possibilities of navigation on ice hence most samples were taken from locations along straight lines The ice was crossed by dogsleds driven by Greenlanders and by a truck from Dundas Later on a belt-driven vehicle was loaned to the team by the base commander The difficult and exacting sampling operations were carried out successfully thanks to the skill of J Zinglersen At each sampling location six discs of snow with a diameter of about 15 cm and a thickness of about 3 cm were cut out using an empty sugar can Before each sample was taken the inner surface of the can was lined with a plastic bag folded over the edge of the can In this way cross-contamination between samples was avoided The six snow samples from each location were bulked in the laboratory where they were melted and partially 1 fig11re 2 Melting and eYaporotlon of now 10111ple1 58 JAN FEB MAR 1910 ----- · - ---------------- - · I ' - --•IUND E _o - l - ---- -- I ' Y - • ·- j - · - -_ r - - -- -------- -_-- - - -- · • - - -4 - r - - - - -- ' - · - - IIGNA'Ral a cl a_ o l•er 1 W D ID-IIIIQ CIILf V IIH-Cl w •• Ag- 3 Map of the 1 tet Soemd ehowl• plul9nlua contaalnatlon ' 911 The poW of fapad II _ wffh • - evaporated in the Teflon-coated pans Figure 2 It was found that on filtration of the water from the melted sample through ordinary filter paper usually more than 90% of the alpha activity was retained by the filter The few exceptions to this rule were ascribed to the content of salt in some of the samples collected from the surface of the sea ice After the filtration each filter was incinerated and the ashes dissolved in HNO The solution was evaporated on a stainless steel disc and the alpha activity of the disc was measured by alpha counting By comparison with a standard the countings were finally converted to contamination levels at the corresponding sample locations expressed as pCi of Pu 239 per cm' l pCi-10- 11 curie The sampling locations and the contamination levels Figure 3 at these locations are shown on the map of Bylot Sound The first samples were taken along the coastline from Thule Air Base to Cape Atholl in order to find the point of maximum contamination As expected it was found in the vicinity of Narssarssuk However the contamination at this point was quite lowonly 24 pCi cm 1 -corresponding to what is accepted in laboratories where the staff is allowed to work for a lifeUSAF NUCLEAR SAFETY -- time The sampling was continued on the ice of Bylot Sound The south coast of Saunders Island and the river valley extending inland from Narssarssuk towards the southeast were also sampled The program was completed on 18 February after more than 100 snow samples had been collected and analyzed The contamination was found to be concentrated in two zones one extending southwards and one westwards from the point of impact presumably caused respectively by direct fallout from the smoke plume and by resuspension from the blackened area Generally the levels including those quite close to the blackened area were very low only at a few points did they reach values of the same order of magnitude as at Narssarssuk • The highest value measured was 40 pCi cm 1 and the geometric mean of all sample was abotit 9 4 pCi cm 2 • In comparison the accumulated fallout of Pu 239 from weapon testing is about 0 1 pCi cm 1 in the temperate zones of the northern hemisphere It appeared that resuspension had occurred only to a very slight degree The total amount of Pu 239 contamination in the Bylot Sound area-outside the well-defined crash sitewas estimated to be only l-5Ci and it was concluded 59 that this amount could be of no biological significance neither as a surface contamination nor as a contaminant of the waters of Bvlot Sound later on when the ice cover would gradually melt For the sake of completeness it should be mentioned that snow samples from the ice that covered the lake supplying the Thule Air Base with water did not contain detectable amounts of plutonium Nor was it possible to detect plutonium in samples collected from the base area from Dundas and from Qanaq corresponding to very small particles was assumed and a maximum inhaled amount of 0 05 µCi was arrived at Even this amount was not considered to be harmful and the actual value must be much smaller because the particles would have had to be much larger than assumed here in order to have reached the ground at this short distance from the a K t nding cloud Moreover these larger particles would not penetrate deeply into the lungs The absence of any significant exposure was later confirmed by urine samples It is difficult to take urine samples in a contaminated area without introducing extraneous contamination which inhibits correct measurement because only a very small fraction of the inhaled or ingested plutonium oxide is transferred to the urine Some of the first samples were slightly contaminated but later uncontaminated urine samples were collected from the Greenlanders in Narssarssuk-including Jessi Kujaukitsok-which showed that no detectable systemic body burden had resulted EVALUATION OF INHALATION EXPOSURE Another point to be considered was the amount of plutonium that the population at Narssarssuk might have inhaled during the passage of the smoke cloud Naturally no air sampling had been performed at that time and since lung measurements are difficult at any rate they could not be performed at Thule the snow samples formed the only basis for an evaluation The surface contamination is the product of the deposition velocity of the particles and the exposure integral i e the integral of the air concentration versus time ThE amount inhaled is the product of the exposure integral and the breathing rate In order to make a conservative pessimistic evaluation a very low deposition velocit r MONITORING OF BIOLOGICAL AND MARINE SAMPLES It Vas considered important to get an impression as soon as practicable of the possibility of contamination through the local ecological system The environmental Figure 4 Three dHpfrozen polo foa•• ore recei- d ot Ii•• for onaly1I 60 JAN FEB MAR 1970 # were _analyzed _a Ri D d as expected they did not contam any act1v1ty s1gmf1cantly different from the fallout background snow samples were therefore supplemented by biological samples including polar foxes Figure -l seals walrus and a dog Christian Vibe and F Hermann carried through the di ficuh task of sampling the seawater and the bottom of Bylot Sound at six different locations-some of them as dose as 800 m to the point of impact-and clown to depths of about 200 m Samples of the sea bottom snails lugworms plankton and seawater were obtained - II these samples were shipped by air to Rise where they were analyzed by Aarkrog who returned to Ris0 on 20 February Of special interest was a sample of faeces from sled dogs used for transport to and from the crash site These dogs do not drink water but eat snow instead It was remarkable and very reassuring that the total quantity of faeces collected 50 g contained only 100 pCi 10 Ci II the other samples contained no significant acti ·ity PARTICLE SIZE DISTRIBUTIONS - s already mentioned the size of particles containing plutonium was of interest in connection with the distribution of fallout from the smoke cloud the evaluation of exposure integrals and the penetration of particles into the lungs By means of an autoradiografic process an estimate of the size distribution of alpha-active particles in samples of s ow from the blackened area and in crushed and frozen ice from-t le impact point was made at Ris0 by H Flyger and H Rosenbaum Attempts- were also made to detennihe the size distribution in snow ample ro Nansa k Dropltts PfU le iu7pensi Dl were deposited on glass-slides which Wb n-tre3htj'srneirred with a thin lay r ot'an eJk y'111 l 'thi--preparationts'were placed in an '1 JJil oi- afid tfterwards covered with a nuclea_r eJ 1 11J siori- strippj-ng film T he -total exposure time$ •fore development were 30 minu_tes for the snow s a apd 1ninutes for -the ice samples Dark-field miefmmpy aled the alpha t r in the transp t eni J QJPiSand - lldhered upon·lhe resin surface the cles n tigg these tracks The par ticles were sizea with a n ·_ Tar- micropieter _f e 5 ·•° COUNTRY-WIDE SNOW MONITORING This article mentioned earlier that the smoke cloud rose to appreciable heights and that the finer particles would be spread over long distances and precipitated in very low and in all probability undetectable concentrations In order to confirm this latter assumption snow samples were collected by the Greenland Technical Organization from 25 locations all over Greenland from Nanortalik and Prins Christian Sund in the south to Dundas and Station Nord in the north These samples - en 1 - - Figure 5 Microphotogroph ahowing olpho trock from plutonium potticlH in o o ple fro111 the crushed ice USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY 61 - ' • -- ' • •A I I gamma scannings was constructed by the Electronics Department at Risd where H Kunzendorf was performing the gamma measurements Roughly this apparatus consisted of a 2 m-long plastic tube with a diameter somewhat larger than that of the ice cores and mounted in a heat-insulated wooden box placed on an iron frame together with a chain-driven feed mechanism for the ice core holder The ice cores were packed in an additional plastic bag to prevent contamination of the tube and the box was filled with dry ice to keep the cores frozen During the scanning pr X'ess the cores passed the 10 x 50 mm slit of a 5 mm-thick cylindrical lead collimator which surrounded a 2 x 2 Nal Tl integral-line scintillation crystal The channel of a single-channel analyzer was MEASUREMENTS· OF BLA J SNOW AND set at 60 keV the main photon energy emitted in the decay of Am 241 which was present as a decay product Ci tf l -•ICE --·- • - of Pu 241 The pulses were fed to a rate meter and to a Aldioagli lhe total -amount of radioattivity··tanted recorder aloft wim- 1 woke _doqct- ead finally deposited on the grouad not be determined it was obvious from The box with ice cores was Jtored in the hot-cell the environmental monitoring program that the resultbuilding and the measurements were carried out here ing qoncentrations were 10 small they could not in any to prevent contamination of the health physics laboraway be considered harmful tories where low-level measurements were to take place What· remained to be done now with respeft to The measurements of the 12 ice cores were repeated district monitoring' w to a ss the a ount of activity by setting the channel of the single-dtannel analyzer at left at the crash site in-thr black -snow crust on defiris approximately 17 keV the energy of L X-rays emitted and in the crushed ice The first ice mres-3 in diain the decay of both Am 241 and the Pu-isotopes The -meter and approximately_« long-were taken by G E shape of the scanning curves was similar to that obtained Frankenstein lJ S y Terrestial Sdenoes Center when the channel was set at 60 k eV although a thinner and B Fristrup Univenity of Copenbaph on 1 Febscintillation aystal is to be recommended in this energy ruary The cores we manually 1C81lned with a singleregion channel gamma analyjer by Maj J Pmutio and Capt A comparison between the American and the Danish W E McRaney from the 'U S Air Force The results gamma-scanning results from the same cores showed and one of the co - were placed at the disposal of the excellent agreement and it was therefore possible to Danish team Soon afterwaz ds Mr Fraokemtein handed utilize the American scanning curves for other cores in over a sample of snow-from a gohlt approiimaiely 1n ' the the evaluation of the plutonium content of the crushed center of the black patch From rough measurements of ice the samples with tlf f gamma aqultichannel --yzet in The determination of the actual content of Pu the kitchen labontory ·ii lbe jmeunt 239 in the ice core samples was carried out in two of Pu 239 remai ing in• ·an oii r blitke 1ed different ways One way was to measure the content of area wu r lew k1k grlllJ • 1'fij A' ' -1 •WU of Am 241 in concentrated samples by pmma spectroscopy very uncertain because o ilie licaiafy of sampies availand determine the ratio of Am 241 to Pu 239 by alpha able at that time but later meuurements showed that spectroscopy The other way was to determine the pluit was not too wide off the mark tonium content directly by chemical separation and At the beginning of February a systematic ice core - alpha coupting The gamma spectroscopy was carried sampling program wu started by the American Ice out in the Electronics Department by Kunzendorf and Reconnaissance Team More than 180 ice cores were Levborg who also performed the alpha spectroscopy taken and they were all scanned in the same way a I • in collaboration with J Lippert of the Health Physics those fint obtained All the scanning results and 12 Department The chemical separations were carried out representative ice cores were placed at the disposal of by B Skytte-Jensen of the isUy Department the Danish group The problem of storing these cores The problem of isolating the plutonium in the ice in a secure cool place was solved by the base comcore samples was attacked by drawing on the experience mander who allowed the old disused jail at Thule Air of the analytical chemists at Eurochemic Mol Belgium Base to be used for that purpose On 12 February the and on our own experience of solvent extraction with cores were sent by air to Ris6 in plastic bags packed in · acyl pyrazolones a wooden box lined with dry ice The melted ice samples were first filtered through Meanwhile an apparatus for making continuous shows a microphotograph of some of the particles In the case of both snow and ice samples particle distributions near to a straight line on log-probability paper were obtained The snow samples gave a geometric mean particle diameter of 5 6 microns and the ice a geometric mean diameter of 2 microns The diameter of the smallest observed particles was 0 7 micron The distribution curves were in each case based upon a count of about 100 particles The snow samples from Narssarssuk contained too few particles to make a determination meaningful Meteorological considerations indicate that the fallout particles at Narssarssuk should be expected to have a diameter of around 20 microns · ' 1 r · • 1 • - - '· • - · · - 62 JAN FEB MAR 1970 mum value The actual value was supposed to be two or fluted filters and the containers were cleaned with pads three times as_high and is hus not in disagreement of cotton The filtrate was then passed through milliwith the far more extensive_American measurements pore filters which allowed only insignificant amounts made wiih the FIDL_g R Field Instrument for Detection of a-activity to pass through The plutonium was con• of Low Energy Ra ij ation instrument by the team from tained in a mixture of jet fuel soot silicone oil and the Lawrence Radiatiqn LaboralO Y minute fragments of plastics and insulation materials The triti ijn conle l l in the 5M1ples of black snow from the aircraft The greater part of the plutonium was where- the co'htentration was ap eciably higher than in the form of vel ' sparingly soluble plutonium oxide by H Hansen Thus the standard procedures for plutonium analy- -· fn the cntS ed ice wu sis were not applicable and it was necessary to develop · •· of the Medical Laboratory- Tlie nigbe t' filue measured 1 a new and rapid method - was 47 mCi- m · r 2 7 mCi 1 rltismeans that as far as tritium is concerned in _a _year i an might ingest the The fortunate circumstance that a pyrosulp _ate nwlt-- -rapidly dissolves plutonium oxides and quantitatively· - triti m ceJttained in 5 _sq ft of the black snow crust or dripk 2 gallons ol_ - th'f ' undiluted meltwater without converts plutonium to the tetravalent state and trud«tt exceeding the 1J1aiim-aio ac ce t ble ·intake recomthat the acyl pyrazolones are capable of cxtracijng tetramended by the ICRP for occupaifonal worken This is valent plutonium ions from sulphate-containing media a farfetdied example anc f e ven if the tritium concenwere the basis for the method developed - · · • • ' tration· in placi might ti es as high as the highThe combined filters and cotton pads were destroyed by treatment with hot nitric acid containi tas- e t value o servM it w u l J tritium could not be 1X nsi end a hazard _ ··-· sium sulphate 10 g to this mixtu 30 rogen - - peroxide was added cautiously to a - ce_ssive foam- PENfflATION •T HROUGffry-RE CRUSHED ICE ing It was possible to speed up the destru tion by the For the following three rea ·it was considered to addition of small amounts of cupric sidi When the be fairty·cerrtfn that thelltttount of activity injected into vigorous destruction reaction of -organic matter had the water through the cnasheo ice wu relatively small ceased the mixture was evaporated to dryness i For one thing it was im ible to det any ac tivity in a quartz crucible and then heated to 300-400°C for 10-15 ·the bottQID samples t n by Messrs Vibe and Hermann minutes whereby the acid potassium-sulphatit melted in February 1968 For -a11 0ther the activity in the con• forming a pyrosulphate melt During this tn atment the taminated ice ·cores was associated with straight dark last traces of organic matter were destroyed r coo_l• bands in the 'ice' These bands appeared to be identical ing the solidified melt was dissolved in 1 N nitric acid with the top layer of snow that had covered the original and an aliquot extracted by means of a 0 1-0 05 M solusurface of the ice before it was broken up into blocks tion of l-phenyl-3-methyl•4•benzoyl-pyrazolone-5 in and pieces churned around drenched with water and xylene refrozen in random positions Finally the bottom 2 The advantage of this reagent over commonly used inches of the ice cores which consisted of new ice formed extractants such as TIA etc is that it can effectively after the accident contained no floating debris dark compete with sulphate ions for the tetravalent plutomaterial or jet fuel or oil and no americium or tritium nium ions A practically quantitative transfer of the could be detected in this part of the cores The corn plutonium to the organic phase occurred Samples for taken outside or at the rim of the crushed ice were unalpha spectroscopy were prepared by the evaporation contaminated all the way through of aliquots of the organic phase on stainless-steel discs The radio-ecological investigations made during the and subsequent heating to destroy any excess of reagent summer of 1968 confirmed that the amount of activu The alpha spectra obtained were of excellent quality in the marine environment was quite small with well-resolved peaks A total analysis including destruction of organic CONCLUSION matter could be made within 10 hours · The amount and distribution of plutonium in the The result of the Riso measurements was that the 1 hule area after the accident was such that it could noc crushed ice contained approximately 20 curies or 320 be assumed to be of significance to the health of 1tw grams of Pu 239 • inhabitants As a consequence of the decision to remove On 6 March 0 Walmod-Larsen who had taken the black snow crust-made at the meeting in Copenover the Danish health physics duties at Thule shipped hagen on 15 and 16 February between U S and Danish 16 samples of black snow from Thule to Riso These officials and scientists-the amount was substanuallv samples were analyzed in the same way as the ice cores reduced Even so it was decided to make a radaoUnfortunately they were not quite representative of the ecological investigation in the summer of 1968 to con• blackened area 60 000 m' -especially samples from the firm the above mentioned assumption and to e•plo1t most contaminated parts of the black patch were lack• the opportunity presented here to btain new knowling The Danish estimate of 70 curies 1200 grams of edge about the radio-ecology of plutonium plutonium in the black snow crust is therefore a mini- _ ise USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY 63 ·- - - - JI 7 ' · - ► # · i- - •• _ •- · • • • T HE area of the B-52 accident is situated in the midLOWER ANIMAL SPECIES OM THI-SHORE · dle of the Thule district which stretches from MelThe beach is made up of rocks and ilere' broville Bay to the Kane Basin of 1 January 1967 this ken up by flat areas of sand pebb sto mixed area was inhabited by 538 natives as well u a small with clay In the ebbing zone between tlii high d low number of Danish officials This does not include Dun'· tides only very few lower mhuakspeciea ant foundi das and Thule Air Base These people's only way of important are amphipods marw and Pseudalibrottu living is hunting seals walrw narwhals white whales • the Margarita snail and the bivalves Mja A _odiofoxes polar bean and seabirds There are only two lus and more rare Mytilw •· • · _··' settlements near the site or the accident Narssarssuk During low tide these animals hide under sfones on the southern side of Bylot Sound with two families in rock crevices or under seaweed which is only visible and Maniussak on the northern side Wolstenholme during low tide Fjord with 6-8 families LOWER ANIMAL SPECIES ON THE SEA BOTTOM Below is a survey of the mammals birds and lower - The sea bottom in North Star Bay and in the fjord animals which form part of the food chain in this area that are of interest in the B-52 case consists of very fine clay which in some places near the 64 JAN FEB MAR 1970 chaeta and pecies of Crustacea as well as several species of Echinodermata and corals On the walrus banks the density of bottom animals amounted to 450 grams per square meter SEA PLANKTON The production of phytoplankton begins in the spring with the return of sunlight and the dispersion of the ice It can be extremely abundant especially near the birds cliffs on Saunders Island where the sea is fertilized by bird excrement Zooplankton can be found the year round from the bottom to the surface In winter the greatest amount is found near the bottom where the water is warmer and saltier than at the surface under the ice· The zooplankton thus consists mainly of Sagitt a Aglantha but also Ca an us occurs numerously In the summer there are several species of Medusas Stenophores Pteropodas Euphausians Copepods Amphipods and fish larvae and at the lower depths Amphipods and Mysis are found in large quantities along the beach THE IMPORTANCE OF THE LOWER ANIMAL SPECIES IN THE FOOD CHAIN The phytoplankton is consumed by zooplankton animals as well as by many of the bottom animals The zooplankton is eaten by many lower sea animals as well as in particular by the Boreogadus sa1'da the little auk and certain other seabirds The littoral fauna is eaten by various waders sea gulls ravens and white and blue foxes The sea bottom bivalves are eaten by the walrus in depths of 5 to 80 meters 16 to 262 feet and by eiders and long-tailed ducks in the lower depths as well as by man who occasionally collect Mytilus and Mya along the beach during the lowest ebb Man also eats undigested bivalves Cardium Mya and Sa xicava from the stomach of the walrus The larger species of Crustaceans Euphausia Themisto in the zooplank ton are eaten by ringed seal The larger species of Cnutaceans on the sea bottom Amphipods Decapods are eaten by ringed seal and narwhal the smaller ones by the eider and the long-tailed duck in lower depths BACKflROUNO coast is mixed with sand and p e _ Dom animal are foUJJd ti ilie1 c Uom material and on- the botto _surface from the wafe 's edp down to the grea ll depdli in the crub approximately 235 meten· a p l y 771 feet In 1996 at a c iptb of 14 a t e l y 46 re t iA the bq·ttlitff ae1r -Dundu 1 lower animal spe•ciea _were demonstrated im ng 11 idj ·eipt species of bivlikres - but the fauna is far richer tlwrtlm·as later investigations have revealed IiiT9 9-41 near r s tsland and northward in the Yidnity of IDJlefield Fjonl at ptha ·tietween f anc l 54 • fets 0 to ·l77 feet 151 lower animal species were found to be living on the sea bottom and in the free muses of water including 20 species of bivalves 2S species of snails 16 species of Poly- USAF NUCLEAR SAfETY The Boreogadus saida occurs in large quantities in the water area between the bottom and the surface according to where the most food is to be found especially plankton There are a number of species of·bottom fish of the families Liparidae Lycodidae Cotlidae et al the more rare Reinhardtius hippogkmoides and Somnwsus microcephalw and in July and August Salvelinus alpinus During the winter the Greenlanders catch some Reinhardtiw hippoglossoides from the ice but only in the south at Melville Bay and northward in the Inglefield 65 Fjord Salt•elinw alpinus is caught during the summer in McCormick Fjord more rarely in other places A few Somniosw microceph lus are caught through holes in the ice for dog f 04 a ol ·it·lilfewise caught during the spring for ttie stmH PJ irpo There is no commercial or sllrimp fishing in the Thule district WHALES caught each ear The meat liver diaphragm kidneys and heart are consumed and at times also some of the contents of the stomach bivalves The most important feeding ground for the walrus is the stretch between Cape York and Etah where it stavs with in the outer coast where the depths do not exceed around 80 meters approximately 262 feet and where the bottom consists of pebbles mixed with clay inhabited bv bivalves Cardium i fva Sa cicat•a J1acoma and Astarte also often eats ringed seals The walrus spends the winter in the northern district lnglefiel Fjord and stays out along the edge of It The white whale and narwhal usually occur in the Thule district and are ca u ght by the population from June until October During the winter some whales stay i'n the ice free water of Baffin Bay but the majority migrates to the south In rare cases the Greenland whale Bowhead is observed during the spring while the killer whale occasionally appears in herds during the summer usually in the lnglefield Fjord These whales rarely go into North Star Bay The most important hunting ground for whales is lnglefield Fjord The white whale lives on Boreogadus saida and Reinhardtius hippoglossoides the narwhal 'furthermore feeds on the larger Crustaceans of the sea bottom The Greenlanders eat the skin of whales mattakl as well as the meat blubber heart kidneys and liver SEALS The seals found in the Thule district are the walrus the bearded seal the ringed seal and the harp seal The walrus is one of the most important animals hunted in the Thule district-a couple hundred are 4 ' • · - - • •• · -· •• - 14 •••• • j • t · ·••i·•·- ········ ··-····· · • 4' • • • • • • -- ' ' _ Grffftlaftd walrus depots on the outhern beach of Saunders h tond w m111et I968 f ••• t_h e ice It does not 1 0 up throu h ice which is thicker than about 10-15 cm and it does not go down to depths greater than approximately 80 meters tapproximatelv 262 feet Thus the walrus does not occur in the area of 'the crash where the ice in January is 80 cm f3 1 inches thick and the depth is 235 meters app r o ximatel y 771 feet During the month of July walrus swarm up from the south They stay alon the outer coast and nr- h· come closer into the fjord than to the eastern tip of Sau 11 d rs Island By end of July they continue northwa rd lo Murchison Sound and the shores of Smith Sound ' A small section of coni nt1 from o wain •• •tomach Thi wain • ha foraged at 10 ao uptll Top ro bolto111I Row I through 5 are 1lphan1 of Scadcan ■ tcllcai Row 6 thro111h 9 oro of My trunc- Row 10 coatclhtt I foot of Ca 41_ - lonllhum 2 of Mc c calcerl 10 of -tart 1 e 11 I of Cuc-rla I Prlqul111 and I 1'101111 66 JAN FEB MAR 1970 • est hours of the day but only for brief periods at a time When the ice drifts out most of the ringed seals move to the glacier edge of Wolstenholme Fjord where the seal hunting then takes place During the month of June the harp seal comes in swarms from the south where it breeds on the drift ice off Newfoundland Its most important habitat in the district is lnglefield Fjord between Qanaq and Siorapaluk but it can be found in smaller numbers everywhere It feeds on fish and Crustaceans It leaves the district with the beginning of the ice formation in September and October During the time it is available the population hunt it a good deal They eat its meat liver heart and kidneys The bladdernose and harbor seal are very rare summer guests The bearded seal is common in the Thule district during summer and winter and is eagerly hunted by the population They eat its heart kidneys and liver and cut up the skin for straps and harpoon lines and the like The bearded seal eats everything except bivalves Its most important food is the Boreogadus saida Coitus and other fishes from the sea bottom as well as large snails Buccinuml and Crustaceans but also animal species such as Cucumaria Psolus and Rossia During the summer it lives all over in the fjords but during the winter only near the outer coast since it cannot maintain its breathing-hole open through ice thicker than 20-30 cm ap- BIRDS Only the most important species are mentioned here The little auk Plotus alle occurs· by the millions in the mountains from Cape Atholl and southward to Melville Bay as well as on the island Kiatak and on the northern coast of Murchison Sound as far north as Etah It arrive·s at the end of April and goes into the mountains to breed in May It lays its eggs under the stones in the scree along the coast and high up in the mountains far inland It leaves the mountains late in August Its nourishment consists of plankton Ca anus lt can be found at the beginning of the summer in small flocks everywhere where there is open water Later in the summer it goes further out to sea It serves as the chief food for the Arctic fox during the summer In May and June the Greenlanders catch it in nets and collect its proximately 8 to 12 inchesl Therefore bearded seals were not in the impact area at the time of the crash The ringed seal is the most common seal hunted in great numbers by the Greenlandic population It occurs in the sea and in the fjords both summer and winter and it can keep its breathing-hole open through 1 to 2 meters approximately 3 to 61 z feet of ice Its food in the Thule district consists mainly of the Boreogadus saida and other fish but also Crustaceans constitute an important part of its nourishment This seal is found in the area of the accident winter and summer From April until June ringed seals can be set n lying on the ice next to the breathing-hole They sleep here during the warmUSAF NUCLEAR SAFETY Sto ch •••toot af a loeaNMcl _ f _ Ne ie fTop to lleno a hw I 1h•w• I I AMft - 11- - I Neaella -lnm I A - INIM d 011d 1 ■-la Iowa 2 3 olld Illa lett holf ol low -4 1h•w1 26 lucc - p TM rl1ht half ol hw 4 ond 5 oftd 6 ahow -49 ••II Ilda of lucc'- ap loltoiw low th-I loMtllHI PGN1llo1 INlfta of I Nida 2 bNkt of hlaio 2 11th olOadulNI - 3 L p • Ill• 67 - - 'i - ··J- • ' - _ • - I • • Elder eAIII •••• eggs in August they catch the young ones before they can fly The catching of the young is done by women and children who crawl around amongst the stones and pebbles of the scree and roll the stones down thus exposing the young Life expectancy is approximately 8 years or more For the most part the little auk from the Thule district spends the winter in Newfoundland The Briinnich's guillemot Uria lomvia breeds in quantities on the western side of Saunders Island but also in several other places in the district There would be a few of them to be found in the crash area during the summer Their food consists mainly of Boreogadus saida but they also consume larger planktonic Crustaceans Themisto Thysanoessat Their life expectancy is up to 16 years or more The eggs are collected in the bird cliffs and the birds are shot in numbers both in June and July when they come into the crevices o the sea ice and during the summer in the bird cliffs and on the sea south west and north of Saunders Island They seemingly spend the winter in central west Greenland and in Newfoundland The black guillemot Cephus grylk can be found during the winter in places with open water owing to currents in and along the ice edge It breeds ln the scree along all of the coasts Its food consists mostly of Crustaceans especially Mysis bul also of smaller fish It is shot a good deal along the coaM especially in the spring along the crevices in the ice D1 1 rjng the summer it is comll oq__along all the o uo around the area of the accident The glaucous gull Larus h_vperboreus breeds in m anv places in the Thule district It arrives early in the pnn while the sea ice is still there It has its nests on 1h mountain ridges on Saunders Island but also in mJm· other places lt begins to lay its eggs in May II l11011l is varied and is searched for everywhere on th«· u r along the beach and in the mountains other binh· n a • and young especially the little auk carrion hc·Jt h • debris fish Crustaceans snails bivah•es berrie- 111 1h mountains etc During the entire summer it l Jn t seen search1'ng the beach and taking what it finds It hue • a good deal especially the young in August and '«-ptember It spends the winter along the ·-coast of I Greenland Its life expectancy is approximately 20 c-iln The kittiwake Rissa lridactyla breeds several pl ct°' in the JI _OUntains of the o r CO l t Its most import1n1 food is small fish and plankton ·which it finds on t h r surface of the sea It spends the winter on the t l J 111 11 -Ocean especially off ewfoundland but ii l 111 1 roam about It is shot to some degree during the 11 m m · r 68 JAN FEB MAI 107 0 • · i The eider Somateria mollissima Some eiders spend ' -h ere on the sea ice along the coasts and on land and the winter beyond the ice edge but the majority leaves · collects objects and flies around with tMm and cons mes during the winter and returns in early spring when everything edible Carrions birds eggs fish Crustaceans snails bivalves berries fox excrement etc Many crevices begin to form in the ice They can thus be found young bi'rds are shot at the end of the summer and the in crevices and openings in the ice along the coast esraven is often caught in fox traps It is tasty and eaten pecially around certain breeding islands of which the with great pleasure closest are Eider Islands Dalrymple Rock and Manson Islands The eider's food consists mostly of bivalves and LANO MAMMALS snails which it eats from the lower bottom depths but The Arctic fox Alopex lagopus occurs both as a blue it also eats pteropods in great quantities Some eider fox ·a nd as a white fox It is common throughout the hunts are carried out during the summer but the coldistrict but is particularly numerous in the base areas lecting of eggs and eiderdown is of the greatest imporand in the little auk cliffs around Cape Atholl and southtance although this is only allowed on one occasion at ward During the winter a varying number of white each breeding place before I July after which access to foxes come in from Ellesmere Island These are larger the islands is prohibited The collecting of eiderdown than the Thule fox During the summer the fox lives is again carried out at the deserted nests after August 10 mostly on little auks Plolus a le but it also seeks food TM collection of eiderdown and especially its cleansing is a along the shore where it eats snails bivalves Crustadust-making process The population does the rough work ceans fish seaweed and dead animals In the mountains of cleaning themselves while the fine cleaning is done at it collects berries Vaccinium uliginosum and Empetrum Upemavik The eider from Thule spends the winter nigrum During the winter the fox wanders around a outside the ice edge between Godhavn and Sukgood deal and collects whatever it can find on the ice kertoppen and along the tidal cracks of the beach It feeds on dead The king eider Somateria spectabilis has a similar birds berries and plants in the mountains and at Thule way of life as the eider except that it breeds near the base particularly on garbage from the dump inland fresh water lakes But when not breeding it also The fox and man The fox is shot or caught in traps gets its food from the lower sea depths Eiderdown ts at a rate of 1000-1500 yearly in the entire district The not collected from the nest of the king eider hunting season is from September to March 31 The fox The long-tailed duck Clangula hyemalis This bird is taken home thawed and skinned by the women The breeds near the inland lakes but during the spring and skinning begins at the mouth and the entire body of summer it frequents the sea along the coast where its the fox is taken out through the animal's mouth During food consists of Crustaceans bivalves Modio aria Mya the skinning and working of tM hide lhe women use their Macorna Saxicava and snails Margarita It is rarely shot lips and teeth lo a great e ctent Before World War II the in the Thule district although more are shot at its winter meat of the fox was always eaten after having been residence It spends the winter for the most part along cooked for a very long time It must be supposed that the coast of West Greenland but birds from Greenland this still holds true The inner organs are not eaten can also be found in the northern areas of the entire Few foxes live to be more than 2-3 years old world including Denmark The polar bear Ursus maritimus is an occasional Waders in small numbers frequent the beach where guest in the populated Thule district One to two bears they search for food during their autumn migration in wander through the crash area per year The polar bear August and September Turnstone Arenaria interpres may also be found hibernating in the district either on Bairds sandpiper Ca idris bairdii purple sandpiper C the islands or on the mainland The real bear hunts maritima knot C canutus ringed plover Charadrius take place at Melville Bay Kane Basin or on the sea hiaticu a and the red-necked phalrope Phalroptl's lobatus ice off Ellesmere Island The most important foodstuff The waders live on the amphipod1 snails bivalves and for the polar bear is the ringed seal Between 20 and 25 insects from the beach · -bears are shot annually The meat except for the liver Falcons Both the gyr-falcon Falco rusticolus and the · is eaten and the fur is used for trousers The life expect· peregrine falcon Falco peregrinus are breeding in a few ancy of the polar bear is 30-40 years places in the district Their food consists of other birds The hare Lepus variabilis is found on the islands especially little auk Brunnich's guillemot gulls and and mainland especially in the little auk cliffs where ptarmigan there is good grass vegetation Its most important food The Ptarmigan Lagopus mutus breeds in small is grass herbs and willow branches It is shot in small numbers inland It feeds on plants especially willow numbers Its meat heart lungs liver and kidneys are buds during the winter It spends the winter in the consumed district The caribou Rangifer tarandus is not found in the The raven Corvuscorax is common everywhere both i mmediate vicinity of the base A few are to be found in m summer and winter It is particularly numerous Olriks Fjord around the dumps at the base It seeks its food everyUSAF NUCLEAR SAFETY 69 Bollom sampling 11 IHft Oft th• ice placed Oft O plo1tlc lhfft to aYOid co11ta111l11atloft middle left I Th• lftOwmoblle was 111ed for transportotloft 01 well as for hoisting the trob SAMPLING IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE ACCIDENT after their arrival at Thule the Danish Sc ienSOON tific Group realized that the sea ice had been broken The water sampler i1 hoilled Oft board AGlANTHA throug by the disintegration o Jhe bombs and that some of the released plutonium Might have ended up · in the water and on the bottom of the sea An exami p ation of water plankton bottom material bottom animals and marine mammals of the area was therefore considered necessary in order to establish to what extent a danger might be present for the native population through contamination of the various links•in the food chain As such an examination had been anticipated a bottom sampler and a water sampler had been brought along from Denmark For the practical performance of the examination the base made two weasels and their crews available with Capt William McRaney in charge 10 JAN FEB MAR 1970 on 7th February and Capt Wallace A Warren on 9th and 11th February The Danish leaders of the operations were H Gjru-up F Hermann and Christian Vibe Examinations were made at six stations on the sea ice Three stations were placed from the southern side of the fjord and outwards towards the area of impact the remaining three stations were placed some 100 meters west north and east of the crash site At each station six snow samples were taken on the _ ice two water samples close to the bottom one plankton sample from bottom to surface and one sample of l 10 m2 sea bottom including bivalves snails worms etc In addition samples of the bottomside of the sea ice were taken at stations 3 to 6 The low temperature of the air made the samples freeze immediately so plankton and bottom samples were taken to the laboratory in a frozen condition in plastic bags Each bottom and plankton sample was divided into two one of which was handed over to the American health physicists and the other still frozen was brought home for analysis at Ris6 Research Establishment In addition to these samples from the area under the ice samples of the animals of the area ringed seal walrus Arctic fox and dog were procured with the assistance of Jens Zinglersen These samples were flown to Denmark and examined at Ris6 Research Establishment When the winter samples were collected the entire area was covered by ice and snow Further sampling had to await the disappearance of the sea ice when an entirely new situation would exist SUMMER ECOLOGICAL EXPEDITION In the spring of 1968 the Danish Atomic Energy Commission decided to dispatch the fishery research cutter AGLANTHA as operational vessel for a scientific team who were to determine the extent of the consequences that the spreading of plutonium might have had for the ecology of Bylot Sound The tasks of the team were USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY The beach on the north side of Wolstenholme fjord i s searched for possibly contaminated debris · • To collect samples of seawater bottom material bottom animals food elements for walrus and bearded s l Crustacea food elements for little auks narwhals and seals fish food elements for se 'eral sea birds ·mussels and other in 'ertebrates from the littoral zone food elements £or arctic fox and eider sea birds marine mammals seaweed lichen eiderdown and dust • To investigate the shores of Saunders Island Wolstenholme Island the Eiderduck Islands the Manson Islands the southern shore or Bvlot Sound and 1he nqrthern shore of Wolstenholme Fjord ' The samples were collected in three zones Zom' I was bounded by a circle with its center in the poin1 o l 71 I impact and a radius of 1 km Zone 2 consisted of Bylot Sound and Wolstenholme Fjord Zone 3 control zone of the region between Cape Parry and Qanaq The implements necessary for the investigation were made in the spring at the Riso workshops with valuable assistance from Robert Jensen The Danish group consisted of health physicists from the Risd group at Thule see Mr Walmod-Larsen's article Messrs G Jensen and P Kristiansen assistants from Riso Frede Hermann hydrographer from the Danish Institute for Fisheries and Marine Research and Jean Just and Christian Vibe Zoologists from the Zoological Museum of the University of C Openhagen Professor Jtkgen Koch visited the group during the field work at Thule and participated in the investigation for some days The Danish ecological group arrived in Thule on The map below shows the sea stations where samples of water sea bottom and animals were collected These comprised • 250 water samples from bottom to surface collected for hydrographical purposes at 22 stations • 4 water samples each of 100 litres from Zone 1 the impact area • 14 water samples each of 50 litres from Zone 2 outside the impact area • 10 samples of bottom material from Zone 1 • 10 samples of bottom material with animals including bivalves from Zone 1 • 14 samples of bottom material from Zone 2 • 25 dredge hauls for bottom animals at 14 stations in Zone 2 • 6 trawl haul5 for Crustacea and fish in Zone 2 I I I I • 1 -w • water sample bOttoin umpl11 bottom scrape -··· Planlcton llaul1 •-w - - Trawl llaull - •JO'N Shor• iiwestiptionl • P'lllll lftPIII • IQl lf' • z- uftd 50 H SI 051 57 52 41• ♦ ♦Q owat• 11111plt1 ♦ aettam • Map 1howl119 th• •• 1tatla111 wh ■a11tple1 of - • • sea botto111 and a11l111al1 were collected • 16 plankton hauls in Zone 2 In addition the team collected seven seals six walrus two eiders five guillemots in Zone 2 and four in Zone 1 six black guillemots eiderdown from the Man son Islands and from the Eiderduck Islands excrements from about 30 eiders on Saunders Island dust from Saunders Island Wolstenholme Island and Narssarssuk 24 July 1968 On the same day W C Hanson Department of Biology Ecology Section of the Hanford Laboratory U S A joined the group with the special purpose of collecting lichens on the coasts of Bylot Sound The fishery research ship AGLANTHA arrived on 1 August and the scientific equipment arrived on the PERLA DAN on 8 August 72 JAN FEB MAR 1970 seaweed from Narssarssuk the north coast of Wolstenholme Fjord the north coast of the Dundas peninsula and from Thule Qanaq lichen from Narssarssuk Wolstenholme Island the southern eastern and northern shores of Saunders Island NunatarMuak Cape Atholl the northern shore of Wolstenholme Fjord Herbert Island and Inglefield Fjord near Thule Qanaq In addition Mr Hanson collected samples of lichen from a great number of shore stations round the area of impact Numerous samples of sea and bottom animals were collected for scientific purposes from Bylot Sound Whale Sound and Murchison Sound The surveillance of shorelines was carried out on foot American helicopters and cars were used for transportation to and from the investigation areas The map shows the stretches of coast examined for wreck age from the B-52 Nothing was found Greenlanders from Maniussalt found flat pieces of wood from two huts in the camp by the point of impact on the sea ice which washed ashore at the northeast point of Saunders Island A black flag on a short bamboo stick-the same kind as those used to mark the area of impact-was found on the southern side of the island A few long bamboo poles-used to mark the driving lanes on the ice-were found washed ashore on the south cout of Bylot Sound on Wolstenholme Island on Saunders Island and on the north coast of Wolstenholme fjord They were found to be clean from radio activity Greenlander equipment found in depots on the shore driftwood and other Rotsam that washed ashore were tested for contamination and found negative An exception was the remains of a helicopter crash several years old the ashes of which showed some radium activity originating from the luminescent coating of the instrument dials The Greenland villages Nansarssuk and Maniussak as well as the· hunting huts on the Manson Islands and Saunders Island were tested for contamination and found negative Some urine samples from Greenlanden at Nansansuk were taken to Ri S for testing These Greenlanders hunted in the vicinity of the impact area All collected material was taken to Riso The zoological and hydrographic samples were forwarded to the l oological Museum and the Danish Institute for Fisheries and Marine Research · The ecological group finished its work on 26 August Th• 01111 •f 011 olcl hellcit _ r Vfltt en the -111- lhore of lylot Sound 1968 The last day at Thule Air Base the memben of the ecological group were shown a recording of the bottom survey conducted by Lt C 01 Marshall E Neal During their stay at the Thule Air Base the Danish scientists received prompt and valuable assistance from the Thule Air Base C Ommander C 01 C S Dresser as well as from all other American personnel at the base especially the helicopter pilots Maj Frank Schnee Maj Charles Simmons Maj Sam Scamardo and TSgt G R Mattews USAF NUCLEAR SAFm Tit• ilool09lcol 111otetlal fro• th• the 1u111111er of 1961 73 Ntto• oflCI llchen1 gottt i The purpose of the radio-ecological study was to determine whether plutonium was present in the environment in concentrations which might be harmful to man and animals and to collect information on the radioecology of plutonium I I ' I I I ' RADIO-ECOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS ASKER AARKROG Danish Atomic Energy Commission Research Establishment Rise INTRODUCTION FALLOUT LEVELS URING the first week after the accident environDmental samples of seawater bottom sediments and zooplankton were collected from holes drilled through the ice in Bylot Sound see Christian Vibe's articles titled Ecological Survey Most of these samples showed no or only a small Pu 239 content however a few samples showed levels significantly above background As it was extremely difficult to ensure that the marine samples collected in the early period had not been contaminated by surface snow which contained Pu 239 in most cues it was decided to make a more detailed radio-ecological study of the environment in August when the ice had broken up in Bylot Sound The purpose of such a study was to examine whether plutonium was present in the environment in concentrations that might be harmful to man and animals and to collect information on the radio-ecology of plutonium which is only imperfectly known 0 Since the beginning of nuclear weapon testing plutonium has been present in nature The global inventory of Pu 239 in worldwide fallout is at present approximately 0 3 megacuries or approximately 5 tons In the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere the accumulated Pu 239 fallout is approximately 1-2 mCi Pu • 239 km 1 and in the arctic environment the level is esti• • mated at 0 2-0 4 mCi km 1 • Hence in By lot Sound ap'proximately 300 km 1 before the B-52 accident we had • approximately 0 1 Ci Pu 239 or l-2g plutonium from fallout EARLIER MEASUREMENT OF PlUTONtUM IN MARINE ENVIRONMENTS The measurements of plutonium from fallout in marine environments have been few A 1964 American re ort Pillai et al • found extremely low concentra•K c Pillai R C Smith and T R Folsom Nature 203 S68-S7l l l I 74 JAN FEB MAR 1970 I 1 Sea sediments Seawater Phytoplankton Zooplankton Bottom animals bivalves Crustacea Fish Birds Walrus Greenlanders l'igur• 1 till Food chcihu In an circtlc marin• •nvlronm nt tions in seawater of the order of fCi 1 1 fCi • 10- 1 curies Pillai found that especially zooplankton and bivalves concentrated plutonium from the seawater The activity ratio between 1 kg fresh weight of zooplankton and 1 kg seawater was approximately 2 500 and for bivalves Pillai found a ratio of approximately 250 FOOD CHAIN The ultimate goal of a radio-ecological survey is to evaluate whether the radioactive substance under study reaches man in harmful quantities Figure 1 shows a sim plified model of the food chain in an arctic marine environment like the Thule area The Greenlanders are hunters not fishermen The animal most important for their nutrition is the seal they eat the meat heart liver and kidneys The Greenlanders also eat walrus although this animal is normally used for the dogs from the stomach contents of the walrus they get bivalves As mentioned by Vibe birds are hunted during the sum mertime and eggs are collected in appreciable quantities • Primary Samples As will appear from Figure 1 seawater and sea sedim nts are the first links of the food chain The levels in these media determine the levels in the remaining part of the food chain Samples of seawater and sea sediments were hence considered primary samples and were as far as possible to be col lected at all locations The collection of these samples was carried out with special equipment constructed by the Danish Atomic Energy Commission The water sam pier Figure 2 had a collection capacity of 100 1 of water USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY • from any depth from the surface down to the bottom and the sediment sampler Figure 3 scrapeq the uppermost layer of the sea bottom to a depth of 1 cm over an area of 0 1 m2 • • Secondary samples The secondary samples with the aid of the ship AGLANTHA bivalves zoo-plankton crustacea and fish were collected by using tf'iangle dredge plankton net and shrimp trawls • Terna ry samples The ternary samples seal 75 birds and walrus were mostly obtained by the Greenlanders But a few were killed by lucky members of the expedition • Uriu sampks Finally urine samples were collected from the Greenlanders for the purpose of checking any human body burden of plutonium • The sampling a wa The sampling area Figure 4 was divided into two zones I and II Zone I was a circular area with its center at the point of impact and with a radius of 1 km and Zone II was the remaining part of the surrounding area in Bylot Sound and Wolstenholme Fjord Counts 1000min 10000 i- Pu-239 S 15 M•V 1000 i- Pu-238 5 Me-V -·0- 100 ' i I i I I i Pu-236 5 -r M V •• flgu -4 Th• 1a■plln1 o at Thul• Al Otffnloncl Ione I ho It• CIMlh at th• point of IMpact • The sampling am The scientific expedition consisted of one zoologist one marine biologist one hydrographer two physicists two assistants for the sampling and an American lichenologist The sampling began in the last week of July and was finished by the end of August By then more than 150 samples had been collected for plutonium analysis • Sampk m unu nt The samples were kept at -10 C until they could be processed in the laboratory The solid samples were ashed at 6 X C and after the addition of carriers and spikes the uh was melted with potassium pyrosulphate to ensure that all plutonium was in a soluble form before the radiochemical analysis developed especially for this purpose by a combin• ation of an American ion-exchange procedure and a Danish extraction method After the radiochemical anal• ysis which could be accomplished within a day for most types of samples the samples were counted for 3-4000 minutes on silicon-surface-barrier a-counters in connection with a multichannel analyzer Figure 5 shows a typical spectrum from one of the stronger samples Sea• water samples were processed by a similar method iron hydroxides were in this case precipitated directly from a 50-litre sample Plgu 5 1 -- -'- a _ 1 _ 101_ • 1 • a t_ 1u1 10 20 30 40 50 60 Channe-1 numbe-r Th• Q-s -ctn 111 of a blYDlff ample fnlm zon• 1 The activity ratio Pu 231 Pu 239-0 02 This ratio-• nHny lh• 1amo in oll samplu from Thulo In which Pu 231 wa d•lectabl• Pu 236 11 tho spike u1ed for th• yleld determination RESULTS ' ·· • Sea water In Figure 6 the results of the sea- water analysis are shown The maximum for water samples was 76 fCi Pu 239 litre found in a sample collected • approximately 5 km west of Dundas Mountain The median fallout background in seawater from five Green• and locations far away from Thule Danmarkshavn gmagssalik Prins Christians Sund Godthah and Godhavn was 4 fCi Pu 239 litre as compared with the median level found at Thule 5 fCi Pu 239 litre At Qanaq approximately 100 km north of Thule the 1evel was 3 Ci Pu 239 litre In Zone I the seawater samples were collected both at the surface and at the bottom 76 JAN FEB MAR 1970 · 0 I UCI '-' u n a 1-• er ' D'- Cl HIii • 0 •• ·c ni 0 figure 6 t I r-t Pu 239 levels in seawater Thirteen 1a nple1 were collected In zone I From most other locations at Thule they were collected only at the bottom The samples from Zone I showed that the bottom samples normally had a slightly hig_h er activity than the surface samples A number of sampll s were filtered through a 1 µ millipore filter before the analvsis and filtrate and filters were analyzed separatelv These analyses gave no indications of significant amounts of particulate 1 u activity in the water samples However we o believe that the_ few samples that showed relatively high levels 10 fC1 Pu 239 1 contained particulate activity probably particles stirred up from the bottom during the sampling It is concluded that the accident caused only a slight 11MEN1 Mi 0 0 $Q '0 -U11Mlil IFQQl IJl J Q t 'lfl' '-' Pu2JIIM11 gJ ' •10•Ci 111 u - 1 6 IO•kllmO fluUIIIW • too c - u auw1 0 Q figure 7 11 ' • - Pu 239 levels in bottom sedimenh Ten samples were collected In zone I USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY increase i the Pu 239 concentration of the seawater in Bvlot So nd · • Boltom sedime11ts The median level of bot• tom-sediment samples collected in Zone II was-t mCi Pu 239 km 2 whereas it was 120 mCi Pu 239 km• in Zone I The highest level was found I km northwest of the point of impact at that location 1300 mCi Pu 239 km 2 was found From the median level the total deposition of Pu 239-iri Zo tJ tlt-rn•J was eslimated aH 4 Ci In the artoi rtot Soun m• the 23 level hi the bott m-iiedupentt w esumated to approx1mately_ l lese estimates do _poLinclude Pu 239 on pieces of de ir hi ght main on th sea bottom at 2'9·tevel-in the top layer It is cenauded' th_ o_f bo t By lot Sou nd i pprox mately 10 times · flout background Jn the inner zone arou ihe-i 2int of #pa Hhe-J e'lel was -more than 100 times•aib jg J ii ti e kR'°urui Thi i n r zo e of high activ nigt f as 1ar as a couple of kilometers ···1aer · · ' t • fromltma- • - d - · Hll plutonium- t el in sea plants Fucus and 'laminan·a was measured m seven samples collected along the shores of Bylot Sound The median level was 0 4 pCi Pu 239 g ash 15 pCi Pu 239 kg wet weight as compared with 0 2 pCi Pu 239 g ash in sa 11 ples collected in other parts of Greenland Godthab Prins Christians Sund Danmarkshavn A sample from Qanaq C 5ntained 0 3 pCi Pu 239 g ash It is concluded that sea plants showed levels of Pu 239 hardly significantly above fallout background • Plankton Mixed -samples of zooplankton were collected in the surface water layers southwest northeast and sou0east of Zone I Furthermore Gammarus were collected along the shore at Manussak and north of Dundas Mountain The median level of the zooplankton was 3 pCi Pu 239 kg fresh weight In Gammarus the mean level was 30 pCi Pu 239 kg If the ratio between the plutonium levels in zooplankton and seawater is 2 500 cf above the estimated plutonium level in zooplankton incl Gammarus is 2 500 • 0 005 pCi kg 10 pCi kg It is concluded that the plutonium level in zooplankton incl Gammarus was hardly significantly different from the fallout background • Crustacea Eight samples of Crusta cea · caught during trawling on the outskirts of Zone I were malyzed Some samples were divided into flesh and shell The median level of the total animal samples was • 1 900 pCi Pu 239 kg fresh we ight The median levels of the flesh and the shell samples were 95 arid _330 pCi Pu 239 kg respectively The maximum level f r Crustacea samples was 12 000 pCi Pu 239 kg tot ammal Shells normallv contained more Pu 239 than did flesh As these Crust ce are bottom animals it is believed that most of their plutonium content was particles incorporated from tire bottom sediments Samples of Crustacea from southwest Greenland contained 3 pCi Pu 239 kg and samples 77 0 10p Ci Pu 239 llg frnh 0 10 • 100 p Ci Pu 2l9 llg wfi tlt f'all4Mit backvround □ 100•1000 p Cl Pu 239111g A 1000-IOOOOpCI Pu 2391kg 6 10000 p Cl P a 239 llg 0 0 0 Plgure 8 0 s 10 15 20 Pu 239 levelt In bivoh H The numbera Nfer to the number of aa•pl•• analynd from each locotlon from Danish inner waters contamed 2 pCi Pu 239 kg It is concluded that Crustacea from Thule contained certain amounts of Pu 239 from the accident the median level being nearly 1 000 times the fallout background • Bivali•es Figure 8 shows the level of Pu 239 in bivalves The median level of all samples from Zone II was 64 pCi Pu 239 kg In Zone I it was 8 000 pCi Pu 239 kg The maximum level was 76 000 pCi Pu 239 kg the sample concerned was collected in Zone I a few hundred meters north of the point of impact The fallout background in bivalves was estimated to be approximately 5 pCi Pu 239 kg on the basis of measurements of bivalves from Danish waters Figure 8 shows that nearly all samples from Thule were above this fallout background Bivalves thus seem to be very sensitive organisms for the detection of plutonium in marine environments Five different species of bivalves were investigated it was however not possible to see any significant difference between the plutonium levels in the different species From replicate analysis it was evident that the plutonium activity was very inhomogeneously distributed within a sample This wu undoubtedly due to the fact that most of the plutonium in the mussels was in particulate form It is concluded that bivalves contained plutonium levels significantly higher than background and th u the highest concentrations more than 1 000 time th fallout background were to be found near the pomt 4 · impact Plutonium could however be detected in It t-h · significantly above background even as far away J _•u m northwest of the crash area • Bottom animals From Zone I a few samplt of worms starfish and sunstars were analyzed A mu Ni sample of worms from nine stations in Zone I conu 1 nc-d 30 000 pCi Pu 239 kg and starfish and sunstars cont 1 1n ed between 190 and 1 100 pCi Pu 239 kg fresh ' 1i h 1 It is concluded that not only bivalves but also otht r bottom animals concentrate Pu 239 from the environ ment and that significant amounts were present · pcdally in the samples collected near the point or 1mp 1• • Fish Sea scorpions were found at tht h i l 78 JAN FEB MAR 1970 tow waters along t M south ast coast of Saunders Island cant i ternal Jewels or plutonillffl-as a result or the acciTw §a p_p l s- - -analyzet - e plutonium content of dent • Hazard j1VC1 on lbe International Comthe ftrs mylt - 1'8-S • •ca ly a ve t back- · mission oo Radiologi L fun - JCRP have not g r o i i _ n t f t · n e d 14 Ct Pu g given m im ·p er_l lissilil J l'tration ' PC for Toe·pol _ · ' fish an J he district marine santples If food habfiS arlcfconcentration factors Three sampl S l s re analyzed and showed in1he food chains are ow t'J s -tewever possible to Jeyels_ffom- · l - - S9 '-A Greenland ali- _ estimate equival to ' le tmissib vels in such but - tirth -I - - 7Q 1 ' 1 Pu_ samples I is case e ly th bivj ves were the 239 kg_ Th was tautfd 1n any f h · critical sampling gbject Fr l B's recommendasam - um level of _SllJ lptes 10 J - - t ions for drinlirig a ter-ifr 1atid tliat the maxi37 pCi Pu 239 k_g ·v · -- ' -- - · inum permiS Jible daily intake-of Pu 239 with the diet is ltfsconcluded _fiafespeaa ly fish h 1J_1g n ar the se a 7 · 0 1 µa · If for instari a Greenlan er eat ii 100 g bi ttom as Greenland·- ' bu contame Pu tevels _ ' lves siaily which ndoubtedly i an upper estimate of s1gnit'ica t ' a_ ove lallQut ac_ oun -H eve the is consum tlfe' MPC in bivalves becomes 1 µCi con ttons were Jo -U1 f1s tha 1Sivalves n · Pu ki Even tfi strongest sample of bivalves contained C · - --- - · 1 a1 -· - J - only one ·ttmtfi• of this pessimistically estimated _ • • Sea birds v samp Vt nte stm · ' -'°nM C value ·- • - -' a • tents feidef lack guif em ts·a ICl Brunmcks gutlle• Eiderdou•fl E1de rdown collcclcd·dunng the mots analy _Th1t - f ivehns-·3 5 pCi Pu sumllter it't4ef du 1MSf ffil qre_e ntanders This 239 kg -Ei own ijeciia-vn the Manson lsla_n ds and ' ' Heaning migli be- tter_for' concern llS an inhalation the Etder uck J gbtnds contiined _130 pCi Pu 23 ·--·hazard if the down and dust co tained appreciable kg down and dij'if adhering to e own · amounB of plutonium Fro the ICRP's recommendaIt wau oncluded that tfie· I birds contained plutotions the daily permiSGble jp_take of insoluble Pu 239 nium levels wliich w re hardly bove _th fall ut back• into the lung is calculated· at l OO pCi i the pennisground The plutonium levels m their mtestmal_ co sible annuaf intake would be 73 000 pC1 The concen• tents were nearly the same as in zooplankton which ts tration of Pu 239 in eidlrdown wu 130 pCi Pu 239 kg a main constituen of their diet The down or ntlier the it is thus extremely unlikely that any Green lander occupied with the cleaning of do n might reach the permisdust in the down from the-Eiderduck however contained significant levels of pluton'ium sible intake of Pu 239 jnto the lungs - _Seals - Five samp es of jntestinal onten 5 of CONCLUSION seals killed m Bylot Sou_nd and Wolstenhol e FJord The radio-ecological investigation showed that the we e analyzed 1 1e medium level w 1 pCi kg_ fresh plutonium levels in the collected samples in no instances weight The maximum l vel was 4 pCi kg fou nd 10 th were such that thev can be considered harmful to man or s om ch contents of a rmged seal shot by the expedt10 higher animals· in the Thule district or in any other lion Just north of Narss rssuk part or Greenland Nonetheless the B-52 accident in By· It was oncluded that seals contained very low _lev s lot Sound at Thule in January 1968 measurably raised of pluto1_uum and that the levels were hardly s1gn1fi• the plutonium level in the marine environment as far out as approximately 20 kilometers from the point or cantly different from the allout background • Walrus I testmal a d stomach contents of im act The highest cohccntrations were round in bot· five walruses killed m late s nng west of Saun ers to sediment bivalves and Crustacea The higher aniJsland were analyze The median l vel was l 3 pC1 Pu mats such as birds seals nd walrus showed plutonium 239 kg and the max1mur_n was 1 8 P 1 Pu 239 kg It as levels hardly significantly dHferent from the Callconcluded that walrus did not contam Pu 239 levels s1 out backgl' ound Plutonium was not with certainty denificantly above background On the o her hand this tected in rine from Greentanders was not unexpected as the walrus were killed fore the 'ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ice melted in Bylot Sound _ These inv estigations would- have been impossible • Human urine Samples of urine from the without the skillful assistance of -Lars Better-Jensen Greenlanders at Nansansuk were collected three times • Marianne Christensen Johs Jensen A P K l ristianjust after the accident in September 1968 and in Felr sen Birgitte Lad foged Jalrgen Lippert•· 'Anna Holm ruary 1969 A few of the samples from the first two colPedersen Jalrn Roed Else S0rensen all staff members lections showed traces of plutonium 239 however the of the Health Physics Department and Erik Kj ier possibility that these samples had been contaminated Markussen ·J Malller Andersen or the Danish Defense during the sampling could not be excluded Hence a Research Board new set of samples was collected in February 1969 and The urine samples were analyzed by Heinz Hansen none or these samples showed any traces of Pu 239 and Vibeke Jdrgensen The Medical Laboratory of the It was concluded thal it was unlikely that any GreenDanish Atomic Energy Commission lander in the Thule district had been exposed to signi• - an - eJ • -fi we - USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY 79 Danish health physics activities at Thule during the clean-up period DANISH HEALTH PHl OLE WALMOO-LARSEN et al • Danish Atomic Energy Commission Research Establishment Rise A BOL'T 10 February Henry L Gj0rup realized that an optimistic conclusion -that very little or no contamination would be found outside the crash area would in all probability be drawn from the efforts of Operation Frying Pan Consequently he set off Iq_r Copenhagen on 14 February in order to take part in the joint U S -Danish meeting on 15 February and to participate in the management of further investigations in Denmark Some days after his departure the ·'Operation Frying Pan team concluded that the environmental hazards from Pu 239 outside the crash area were in fact comparable to the accumulated fallout from weapons testing The team cabled this conclusion to Copenhagen On the ba is of the team·s fa ·orable report it was decided to scale-down the Danish scientific efforts in Thule In accordance with the conclusions reached at the February meeting in Copenhagen namely to remove as muc of the contaminatea snowis po 5ible for the sake of good housekeeping a cleS'sion was made to continue the on-scene U S - Daqisff mainly on the health physics aspects of tlie·operiitions t come This· was natural on the part of the--Danes who wanted to ensure that no Danish citizen would be exposed to any hazards in connection with the removal of the con laminated materi l from Danish territory More than a thousand persons assigned to Thule Air Base work for the Danish Constnaction Corporation DCC which with a Danish staff carries out all the civil operations of the base It was natural therefore that from the very start the DCC staff took part in the Crested lee Operations Danish workers lllling the many rows of 25 000 -gollon tanks with con • laminated snow and ice coo tiii on One of the prohlems facin the Danish he 11th physicist left on his 0 11 at the scene after the departure of the Frying Pan Team was the layman's fear of the un1 nown the fear of radiation of contamination of atomic eapons and fear of all the new unusual phenomena suddenly disturbinl the quiet Arctic area at Thule Each time Danish participation in the operations escalated further roups of taff had to be put into the picture briefed on safety p1·ecautions and made to realize that these precautiom were for their own om Se ·eral briefings ·er arr inged in close cooperation ·ith the DCC afety ofli cer F Stubbe Te -tbjer in order to get thin s goin Before the rcmo ·al operations started the DCC key personnel were informed in detai I ubou t the radiation-protect ion mea 11 n• Asker Aarkrog Lan Bouer-Jensen Poul Christensen Henry L Gjerup JGlrwen Lippert Jorn Roed and Ame SGlrensen Health Ph ·sics Depart• men1 and lei Le11borg Elecironics Oepanmem 80 JAN FEB MAR 1970 laid down in the U S -Danish agreement in the Health Physics Program for Snow Removal Operation Another briefing was held a few days later in a heated bus parked at the work site of the Danish workers who were filling the many rows of 25 000-gallon tanks with the contaminated snow coming in from Camp Hunziker This briefing gave rise to one of the more diverting events of the Crested Ice Operations Contrary to the plans laid down by DCC the briefing caused a delay of slightly more than one hour because of many questions from the workers ·This was a highly undesirable delay oo nsidering the fine weather and good operational conditions When the delay became known the smell of brimstone emanating from the SAC headquarters was detectable several miles off until the reasons for the delay were made clear to General Hunziker who wanted to speed up the clean-up operations This speedup was necessary due to the shortage of time and the many unknown factors such as weather conditions and the vulnerability of the vast machinery put into action The original idea was that the entire removal operation hould be carried out by U S personnel if possible When Danish assistance was required it was to be for work only in noncontaminated areas or for work O l items proved to be free of contamination When the heavy snow-filled containers were emptied into the tanks minor spills were unavoidable Even though these spills were collected immediately with shovels and brooms there was a risk that contamination might spread throughout the base The original U S -Danish agreement was therefore modified to the effect that the tank-filling area was declared a contamination area with corresponding regulations concerning clothing transportation and decontamination No contaminated Dane would be allowed to cross the hot line in the decontamination building Nasal swabs were to be taken records to be kept and bioassays carried out as deemed necessary by the health physicists At the next briefing for the filling teams numerous questions were raised as to the reasons for these precautions One of the most significant problems only appeared after more than a 11 t-hour discussion-the problem was fear of sterility and impotence When it was expJained that these fears were groundless no further questions were asked Another briefing was given to the Danish mechanics working at the Base Motor Pool The strain on facilities for repair and maintenance of vehicles and machinery operating at the crash site and in the tank area gave rise to a minor spread of contamination originating from the engines where contaminated snow particles stuck on tne warm oily surfaces and finally melted This led to the establishment within a few hours of an additional vehicle decontamination facility and to_ the enforcement of minor restrictions at the Base Motor USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY 81 Pool which had to be explained to the staff Close and frequent contact with union stewards proved useful in ensuring maintenance of good relations with the workers and also in explaining that the results of nasal swabs and urine samples were found to be negative This proved that the precautions were entirely adequate and that no Dane had been exposed to any hazards during his work in contaminated areas By the middle of April the 140 vehicles and machines were cleared of contamination except one belt loader which was painted and stored for disposal and the various areas and buildings used for that purpose at the base were cleaned up In J pril the crash site was fenced in and marked and the hunting restrictions were modified giving 'Greenlanders access to the rest of the Bylot Sound After this period the Danish health physics activities in the spring decreased to some visits of a few days' duration Later on when the bay and the harbor were reopened Danish health physicists were again permanently stationed at Thule until the USS MARINE FIDDLER sailed into international waters carrying on board the last•Crested Ice tanks The new stevedoring crew coming in from Copenhagen was given a safety briefing Here as in the earlier briefings it proved valuable that qualified persons from an independent authority were present Transportation between Thule in the Polar Region and Copenhagen in Denmark is very infrequent A regular Scandinavian Airlines SAS flight is sched• uled for every second Wedne ay and every second Monday an SAS freighter lands at Thule Air Base Because the flight crews have to return within the same working day lthe flight time being more than lO hours the planes must be airborne again in less than 2 hours which gave little time for briefing and introductions be· tween the incoming and outgoing scientists who took turns at discharging the responsibility for safeguarding the health of the Danes involved in the operation None• theless the team managed to uphold the necessary continuity in this service During the entire operation the Danish health phy• sicists had unrestricted access to all data on the measure• ·-ments made on site and later in the U S on bioassavs ·l_llld on all nasal swabs taken All the measuremeo'ts proved that during the whole operation no Dane had • been exposed to any radiation hazards All the items to be transported were cleared in excellent cooperation between U S and Danish health phys• icists After a thorough survey of the tank farm the last contamination area at the Thule Air Base a U S -Danish Fmal Health Physics Report on Project Crested Ice drew the conclusion that all areas concerned could be gi ven free with the classification NDA- No Detectable Activity -i - r -- -- --- b •-•Pn- il · a- · ' · - -· ' · _ Sclenciee New ►-WinpahlN ·· • i 1fid w u an example of man's ability _ to-u e one of natur aa materials to advantage The material in this case was Sea ice when used as foundation or const111dien J111terial has stress or safety limits like any other material It is necesaary to understand ese limits- to em Id resuk in_th Jou of hfe and equipmen -• ' -i ' - _ The first trips from to Bn hff' Arf6w·•siie '- · were made by helicopter and dogsled thus litn'iting die number ot - and amount of eqwpnu 11t-' ' which coujd e d to the site It was thvefore obvious that sunaortnnspo tion other than dogsled u d be nece _ _ a l and speedy r very - ice ffllSSIOD _ · The original ice thickness measured 39 near shore and from 23 to 24 at the site later named Camp Hunziker The measurements were taken in the cenler of the newly plowed road that ran from Delong Pier ti Camp Hunziker Variation in ice thickness is normal for a bay or harbor similar to North Star Bay for the area near shore freer es first and therefore has a greater ice thickness The quality of the ice and its measured thickness indicated that the ice could safely carry distributed loads up to 50 000 lbs It was decided that future transportation to and from Camp Hunziker would be by autom tive equipment The original road called Road No l did not run on a straight line from shore to Camp Hunziker It croaed several large SIIOINlrift areas which were DQI ' lemable because of the diffiaJl't of remoYing snow-alliereacb windstorm - Tht road_ n Jaacame it became im ible to remon·tlle large b In any operation requiri -- ic e-road it iaadmable to have an alternate road With-two roads tbe·dnnce of over-fatigue of the foe is limitecl 'Ibis pllis- the difficulties encountered with Road No jUlli eel_ e con struction·of a seoooclroad _ Road No 2 wa lllid out on a straigbl- line from shore to Camp Hunziar lt-wu abo laid out • bat the mowdrift problem would be at a minimum It was decided to close Road No 1 and lay out a new road parallel to Road No 2 The two roads were aosaed by a number of tidal and thermal cracb Tidal cracks are produced when the tide lifts and breaks the ice These aacks usually refreeze and fill with mow They normally present no danger once the entire bay is fro um over Thermal cracks are produced when the ice surface is subjected to extremely Two - ' - leatllnt to Co•p Hun tit in _ I i l I I ii 1 low temperatures and then stressed by a load These cracks look dangerous because they can open more than several inches They rarely penetrate the total ice thickness and again are not dangerous if care is taken Each day notations were made of the location of each aack in the road measurements were made of these ·aacb u well as of tlie ice thickness of the roads This was a safety measure so that any unusual situation could 6e monitored before there was any chance of danger Many -inch diameter ice cores were taken in the uea · The cores were taken from the clean black _and impact ice zones The ice in the clean and black areas was identical to undisturbed normal sea ice The ice thickness at the camp and parking area varied from 23 to 24 ' The camp site consisted of a number of plywood buildings placed close together They presented no problem as far as critical loads on the ice were concerned but would have presented a 82 JAN FEB MAR 1970 serious snowdrift problem For this reason they were repositioned at least 50 feet apart Snow is usually a problem when operating on sea ice Many man-hours of work and wear and tear on heavy equipmen _ be saved if buildings and ro s are aligned to take into account the primary problem of excessive snowdrifth g Large piles of snow can be dan· gerous-their weidll an cause the ice to fail This was almost the c ise at Camp HuntikP r A large building 92 x 18 feet was assembled as the main building of Camp Hunziker It was placed approx• imately 500 feet from the other buildings ahd a large parking area was laid out a safe distance 500 feet from the building During the evening a front loader operator removed the snow from the parking area and placed it in a large mound dose to the building Being newly assigned he had not been told of the dangers in placing such a large load near a building This oversight placed the personnel and contents as well as the build· ing itself in great danger General Hunziker first to arrive on the scene the following morning recognized the hazard and took immediate action to have the snow removed This incident illustrates one factor which must be considered when operating on sea ice Project Crested Ice will long be remembered for many reasons one of which is highly creditable-that of being one of the most efficient operations ever con• ducted on sea ice The ice thickness was marginal from the beginning of the operation yet there were no acci• dents due to ice failure This was attributed to rigid adherence to the necessary discipline A memo titled Ice Operations describing the safe procedures for operating on the existing ice of North Star Bay became everyone's way of life and the conformance to its instruc· tions resulted in an accident-free operation The memorandum follows by the ice inspection team 2 Parking of hides There are parking signs at the site area which specify the safe parking distance be· tween vehicles These distances must be maintained 3 Fottign rruJterig It is very important that nothing dark be thrown or discarded on the dean ice surface This ind ldes items such as cigarettes candy or gum wrappers waste oil urine and wood Once the sun appears these dar objects will absorb the sunlight at a faster ·r ate thim the ire wilt -diere causing melting Once melting begins a hole or crater will form These openings can beco e large enough to lose a large trailer in It is therefore important to begin police practices now The clean police habits begun now will insure your safety in a few weeks 4 Crac ks The existing linear cracks in the roads are caused by thermal expansion There is no danger associ• ated with them A failure crack will be a circular crack which will form around the load Considerable deflection will occur before failure of the ice If you are in a vehicle or building and a circular crack forms leave the immediate·area of the load Don't panic but leave the building or vehicle quickly and get 50 feet away If a lead opens a large crack caused by ice movement don't panic but return over the road you have traveled until you can report the lead by the best available means You can then return to base via the other road if possible Should both roads be cut off by a lead you will be picked up by a helicopter pending closure of the opening by natural freezing action 5 Driving safety Always wear your arctic gear while traveling the two highways Don't park near vehicle§ buildings or heavy objects on ice Park 200 feet apart t Drive carefully and steadily The ice will normall ' afford good traction Observe the road ahead carefullv for unusual cracks or snowdrifts If any are suspectt'd stay clear at least 50 feet Report any potential problem areas to the Air Police as soon as possible Editor's Note The following procedures were based on the climate and ice conditions at that time and place and are not recommended for use under other conditions • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Project Crested Ice as well as previous projech rn volving ice operations demonstrated the importaml' nl having previous experience and knowledge of the Jlt c of using ice as a load-bearing material For this rea n · the U S Army Terrestrial Sciences Center was requt• tt I ro conduct the ice measurements and to advise on th · overall ice operations ICE OPERATIONS OPERATING ON AN ICE SHEET SUCH AS THE ICE IN NORTH STAR BAY CAN BE DANGEROUS IF ONE IGNORES THE GROUND RULES AND INSTRUCTIONS ISSUED BY THE COMMANDER ONE CANNOT AFFORD TO BECOME CARELESS WHILE OPERATING ON AN ICE SHEET THE FOLLOWING INSTRUCTION SHOULD BE USED AT ALL TIMES l Dn'ving on ice road The vehicles should be spaced 200 feet apart at all times If a vehicle is stopped it is permissible to pass but never faster than posted speeds The road is safety inspected each day for cracks and faults After a phase no one is authorized to drive on either of the two roads until they have been inspected USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY • • Editor's Note For the information of Air Force off1cer1 nJ civilians who are scheduled for cold regions du v th r USAF Civil Engineering sponsored course al the l' S I • Terrestrial Sciences Center This course a 1-u•eek ft'r'1' ' of a Cold Regions Engineering Course discusses the l J 1 of aircraft on ice and approaches to dealing with e 11gt ne•• i ptoblems relating to occupation of and operations 11i the cold regions 83 INTRODUCTION ice cover is normallv not verv thick and rarelv exceeds jepth of 1 meter· 39 inch s whereas much thicker ice can be found in North Star Bay and Wolstenholme Fjord N Sunday 28 January the Danish Atomic Energy 0 Commission asked me to join the Danish Scientific Group at Thule Air Base I left on Monday 29 January together with Dr P M Hansen marine biologist Dr C Vibe zoologist and Dr F Hermann hydrographist Weather conditions at Thule Air Base were poor and just before we reached our destination the airport was closed because of a blizzard and we had to land at S0ndre Str0mfjord an alte ate airfiJ l• il ere the a rplane--retumed to Copenhagen- an d an• encan airplane took us to Thule J ir Base qn -Tuesday 30 January Although we _represent t- iJferent sciences the members of ouiparty hwfl worked' Hi Greenland for several years and 1t10Stof_ufJ M' a thoruugh knowledge of the area around Thule' · During the days that fol•ed we observations in the crash area and took part in djscusfions concerning what measures ought to be talceh •to the pop-' ulation i protffl le• floe In the Thule area the formation of fjord ice usually begins at the end of September or the be innin o l 0 tober 'Inis ea rly ice is ohcn broken up by gales RcuU solid ice is not formed until the end of the vear - the ¥ inter pro resses the ice u·racluallv bcco es thid er NORMAL ICE CONDITIONS IN THE AREA In Bylot Sound where the accident happened the 84 JAN FEB MAR 1970 I The rate of growth depends to a great extent on the temperature of the air and the snow covering A thick layer of snow serves as insulation and the ice will grow slowly whereas no snow or only a thin covering produces a faster rate of growth At the beginning of May the ice will crack under the spring sun and in the course of a few weeks pools of meltwater will gradually form on the surface of the ice The melting begins and is most intensive in those places where the snow or ice has been soiled bv sand or other material whid1 has blown out from the shore This is because the dark material absorbs the heat With increasing air temperature the ice cracks more and more the pools of meltwater grow in size and lanes of open water may be seen The breakinf u p of the win ter ice into drifting floes normally take from 2 to 3 weeks As the ice floes drift back and forth with the tides they gradually tear apar diminish and melt away Towards the end of summer only drifting icebergs are seen in the Thule district They originate from the calving glaciers particularly from Moltke Gletscher at the head of Wolstenholme Fjord and from Indlandsisen at the head of Inglefield Bredning When the ice in Bylot Sound has broken up the current and the wind carry it out in Baffin Bay either north or south of Saunders Island depending on the pre 'ailing weather conditions If the weather is relatively calm the ice will usually go out south of Saunders Island whereas a strong wind from the sea - the normal wind direction in this area - will carry the ice along the coast of Steensby Land and westward The current may carry the drifting floes close inshore here they may be beach• ed but there are no particular places in this area where the ice is prone to pack Figure I Usually unbroken winier ice from October-November to June-July ·Eatreme limit of winier ice oflen broken during NovemberFebruary but u1uallyunbrok ■ n from Morch to lhe middle of Moy Occo1ionol drift ice formed by broken land 'ice moving south words Bonks with grounded icebergs 0 ICE CONDITIONS IN THE WINTER Of 1967-68 A map showing the normal ice conditions in the Thule district is shown in Figure 1 In the autumn of Ice conditions north of Ballina Bay Old Map Open water owing to currents early in spring oho often at new ond full moon throughout lhe winier 1967 the first freezing up was observed early in Sep- tember but a pell or mild weather caused the ice to break up again so that the genuine winter ice was not formed until the middle of October During November there was a lot of nowfoll so it must be presumed that the winter ice was relath·elv thin and had not reached its maximum depth when the accident happened The measurements taken durin our investi ations showed ·· _ that the ice was still growin and that it must have been approximately 70 cm 27 inches thick at the time of 'the accident OBSERVATIONS IN THE CRASH AREA Observations at the point of impact of the B-52 showed that the sea ice had been broken up Ice floes of from 2 to 5 meters 79 to 197 inches in diameter had bee1l tilted upwards One ice floe had even been pushed right out of the water onto the surroundin ice and in several places it was po sible 10 ee the 11n lersiclc of the floes Between the llucs in ma11y places one rnuld ee a mixture of crushed ice and new ice cm·erecl by J Ice floe from the crushed 1pol1 USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY 85 r carried out by Dr G Frank stein thin layer of snow A few floes had not capsized but had been lifted up and lay higher than the surrounding ice as can be observed when the sea ice is no longer coherent but is floating freely as floes in a lane Pieces of ice were scattered around the point of impact and it appeared from the texture of the snow that around the crushed ice there had been a zone where the snow had been drenched by sea spray or by a wave breaking in over the ice The picture of the crushed ice and the piled up floes leaves no doubt that the ice had been broken and thai at some momen there had been operi water l le-piled up floes were·angular and there was no tra e'of any melting The £ta were _f sh · and o similarity to those of the old pack What we saw-wis the result of the _ B-52 hitting the ice ·· - T -- South of the aash area one could see the black spot This consisted of a 1-3 cm o 1 5 inches thi_ck crust of snow that had been melted and in a few spots the sea ice itself had melted Under this crust the snow·was not deformed and there was no sign ot-any melting Mea urements showed that the crust wu strongly c on inated whereas the underlying snow was clean On the basis of these observations and the knowledge gained previously by this author one obtains the following reconstruction of the events When the aih plane crashed the ice was crushed and for a short time a lane had been formed filled with floes and bits of ice One-fifth or one-third of this lane may have been open water It is difficult to obtain an accurate·estimate of the size of the lane since all the irregularities and floes had been covered by drift snow after the time of the accident but a diameter of about 50 meters approximately 165 feet seems likely It was evident that parts of the B-52 could have sunk to the bottom through this lane The black spot showed where the burning fuel had streamed from the airplane when it hit the ice The heat from the fire had no doubt been considerable but it is also well known that heat does not penetrate deeply into the snow Within this area no traces were found of large pieces of debris hammered or melted down through the ice and with an ice depth of 70 cm 27 inches small objects could not have penetrated the ice either way A number of corings in the crushed ice area showed a layer of impurities large enough to be detecteii with the naked eye Several of them looked like drops of oil The measurements showed that this horizon fairly close to the underside of the ice was strongly contaminated The layer of impurities corresponded to the underside of the ice at the moment of the crash The impurities stemmed from the accident and had been swimming in the water immediately under the ice cover and were thereafter incorporated into the ice as it grew downwards The records show that the ice grew at a ra e of approximately 1 1 cm 0 2 inches per day in the beginning of February A more detailed coring program with the collection of samples of the sea ice in the area of the accident was CONDITIONS-DURING ICE BREAK-UP The Danish Scientific ·GroupA iscussed ·the probable ice situation in the spring It was obviou that the black spot would melt relatively quickly because ofthe effect of the sun· on· the dark colored mqw n t use the crust would melt m9 e rapidly th n _normal snow anyway A relatively laige pool_of meltw ater would therefore be fo ed on the ice and it wa expected that an early formation of cracks an _J lanes in the ice would follow due to the compression of the snow caused by vehicles used during the clean-up operations The biologists foresaw that these cracks and holes could attract seabirds particularly the little auk The group also discussed what could be expected to happen to the drift ice once the ice had broken up The possibility that the ice would go beyond the Thule district could be excluded since it would melt before it had drifted that far On the other hand it was impossible to foresee with any certainty the direction of the ice drift or whether some floes would drift ashore with their possible contents of contaminated debris Furthermore it could not be excluded that some material capable of floating might be carried ashore with the current once the ice had melted Since the current generally flows northward it seemed most likely that such objects would be washed up at Saunders Island or Steen by Land How• ever since material from the garbage dump at Thule Air Base can float as far as to the head of Inglefield Bredning the group recommended that a search be made in the summer of the coasts in the vicinity of the crash site It was generally agreed that any debris left on or in the ice after the clean-up operations should not be allow ed to drift too far So it was suggested that some dark material be spread over the ice to further the melting In this way a hole could be melted in the ice and any debris left from the accident would siQk before the ice broke up Experiments with carbonized sand were later made by the Americans at the end of May On 29 May I was again in the Thule area and had the opportunity to follow these experiments From a helicopter it could be seen that the carbonized sand had had some effect but since snow had fallen and covered · the sand after it had been sprayed on the ice the total effect was not too impressive Time did not allow me to f-ollow the experiments any further As has been mentioned in other articles in this mag· • azine it appeared that most of the contamination was contained in the black area and so it was decided to remove this localized contaminated layer or'snow Without going further into the physical properties of snow and ke it i clea r that the fact that the accid nt occured on snow-covered sea ice limited the extent or the contamination There was no contamination of the sea ice in general and the sea ice from the site of the accident did not go far before it melted away 86 JAN FEB MAR 1970 I ' I I REMOVAL OF DEBRI COL LEONARD J 0 Director of S ITH the completion of on-site evaluation an_d reW covery operations by the Strategic Air Commind SAC effort was directed toward the problem of dealing with the contaminated waste During recovery operations 217 various sized containers of aircraft residue and sixty-seven 25 000-gallon tanks of contaminated snow and ice from the site were collected In addition there were four 25 000-gallon containers filled with such items as tires clothing tools plywood and parachutes Transportation requirements for a removal operation of this size created a problem of great magnitude It was decided to turn the job over to the Air Force Logistics Command AFLC Within the command the task was assigned to the Directorate of Special Weapons located at the San Antonio Air Materiel Area hereafter referred to as SAAMA Kelly AFB Texas Lt Col Vernon E Carkin Chief of the Production Management and Technical Services Division served as Project Officer To gather all necessary information a meeting was held at SAC Headquarters on 8 April with personnel who had recently returned from Thule Air Base following recovery operations The main questions concerned the amount of waste requiring disposal and its degree of contamination These questions were directed t9 the civil engineers and health physicists The SAC Civil Engineers estimated that the 67 petroleum oil and lubricant POL tanks were 85% full with approximately 4 500 gallons of melted snow and ice in each tank They recommended a filtration process be used to decontaminate the liquids This would allow the effluent to be discharged into the bay and would eliminate the necessity of transporting the liquids to USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY the United States for disposal However the health physicists did not fully agree with this concept due to the high degree of purification required to meet international drinking water standards Returning to SAAMA another meeting was called with personnel from the Atomic Energy Commission Aerospace Defense Command and AFLC who had been at the site Many ideas and suggestions concerning the handling storage and transportation of the radioactive materials resulted from the conference To insure thorough evaluation and consideration of each suggested plan a formal staff study was prepared Many aspects including international opinion feasibility climatic and geographic conditions were considered in the study Three alternatives were proposed A brief summary of the plans follows One plan was to ship all of the 25 000-gallon tanks and smaller containers filled with contaminated waste to the United States for disposal However the disadvantages o this plan were far greater than the advantages with such problems as the requirement for extensive cradling supports from the tank farm to the ·- ship and also aboard ship Another hazard was the tilted entry o partially filled tanks into the ship These procedures could prove to be extremely· dangerous The second plan provided for handling the radioactive waste by filtration and dilution The frozen waste was to be melted in the POL tanks The clear liquid between the scum and sludge layers would be pumped through a five-micron filter followed by three one· micron filters placed parallel and leading to a holdin11 tank Again the disadvantages proved too great The 87 Oecont1 1minotion personnel vntooded forklift inside designated bunker TANK FARM Pump-lronder crews prepared lo pump melted snow water from the large 25 000-gallon tonk lo small containers lo facilitole shipping the residue lo the U S problem was that an adequate filtration sntcm ith necessary operatin procedures had not 'et been designecl fabricated and service tested The 1hircl plan prn ·icled for trau fc r ol radioactive waste into m iller transportable tanks for return to the l' nited States for di spo - al Radioacth·e residue in the i•Ol tanb would be melted and the liquid ptun·pt-d into muller tanks made from moclil iecl cn ine containers of l 00- allon capacity which were excess to the Air Force neecl The tanks would then be transported from the shoreline storage area to the ship clockin area for loadinl aboard car o ships The tanks would be shipped lo the l'nitcd States and transferred to railroad cars for shipment to Atomic Energy Commission designated disposal areas Empty POL tanks which originally held the material would be sent to designated disposal areas as well This alternate was approved by the Air Force Logistics Command erospace Defense Command the CSAF Directorate of uclear Safety HQ VSAF Department of Defense Department of Tra portation Department of State and the tomic Energy Commission After this proce s the pl 111 ·as coordinated with and approved __by the Danish Go 'ernmcnt · - n adequate number of the smaller modified tanks were available at SAA lA as well as F-6 aviatjon gas rf fuelinl units which were used as on site portable pumpin - equipment Prior to approval for use the modified cans were subjected to a se ·ere testinv program for leaks stability and d_urability To determine the conditions at the site what equipment was l ·ai able and what J ro l ms would be encountered durinK the actual re oval and disposal operation a team of highly pecialized personnel ·isited Thule Air -Basc Cpon the team's return from Thule the SAAM - Military Personnel Office selected the personnel who would make up the on-site task group 0 On the morning of 25 June the hancl-pkkC'd cm-'IIC' team assembled at the Directorate of Spt•ci il l'apon conference room to learn of their assignment rlH' 11• 1m consi tccl of2-t 1wr onnel-one officer I airnwn ' '' ci ilians l rom S - 1 two airmen from tlw l 1t111 i ir Command ancl one from SAC Faint murm11r ran throu h the roup lrnt i 1111 all about ' 1 ll b Projen Crested Ice - How 1011 1 1 this thing last ' ncl of courw wlty met These and all other questions were answered dun11 a comprehensive briefing concerning the mi ion 11 straints and time schedules international inkn• t 111 1 relationshtps ndividual crew a ignment- 1·n· ·· in the major- areas of effort melting pump 11 m 1 r radiological monitoring packaging and tran p •• and finally administrative and control func11011 T1-aining- the tuk ·group began on the 21 Jh nl lun at Kelly - ir Force Base The trainin was unmu 11 1h circumstances were unusual Some learned to lw 11 1u• filled tanks rather thaf air craft engines others t I' mp transfer radioacti1 ely contaminated liquids - i Ii 1111 spillage instead of pumpin a ·iation fuels whit · -11 11 others learned _to palletize me label drum o l r t actively contami ted aircraft dC'hri rather thJr1 1 drums The personnel who were' iqm econclarv · _menting assi nments were cross-trained Thu · u r rently qualified to operate related cquipmc nt r · intensive ·trainin and were licensed by K ·li thorities On ll Julv the team left Kell · - ir fo11 IL • on a C-118 which be ame afll'ctionately ·known 1 1 •• Commuter's Special ' Upon-arrival a Thule the follo ·ing clay th · • ···i was briefed by the SA I - ch·ance Liaison • 11 The briefing included a tour of the local an· On 16 July the l'S S TOWLE of the ltl11 11 ' · Transport Service docked it Thute·s De Lon I' 1 immediately began unloading the Crested Ii · 88 JAN FEB MAR l Q7 ' lOADING OPEIATIONS Empty POL tonks are placed aboard the U$N$ TOWlE for shipment lo Charleston South Corolino Fuel lc1nk beint lifted onto flotbed by crane ment including 232 modified engine containers and two F-6 refueling un its To protect against spillage additional equipment was manufactured at Thule Air Base Sheet metal pans were made to place under the F-6 units and collars were fabricated to encircle the R-4360 filler caps and POL tanks to soak up contaminated liquid from suction or discharge nozzles Other innovations were made such as the adapt ion of a POL system filter unit to fit around the suction nozzle to screen out debris from the POL tanks All preparatory efforts ot' the pump-transfer operations were completed by 22 July The igloo area operations began 17 July with the manufacture of barrier bags to completelv contain md seal the drums mcl cans of residue for hipment During the operation it was discovered that one of • he modified cans and one POL tank had leakage clue t o punctures However it was determined that the liquid was not hot and the containers were repaired with an epoxy compound Additional safety briefings were held by the On-Site Health Physicist Capt William Moyer He re 'iewecl tht• hazards and demonstrated the use of a ·ailable protective clothing and gear F ll pump-transfer operations began 22 July with two crews each with a radiological monitor operatinl IO hours a day Competition immediately spran up bl tween the crews to see which could pump the grcatl'r amount each day USAF NUCLEAR SAFETY 89 Thanks in part to the prevalence of good weather 49 of the 67 POL tanks of contaminated liquid waste were emptied and two hundred and thirty-one R-4360 containers filled by 29 July One-hundred gallons were left in each POL tank as a dampener to lessen the danger of sparking effects of• debris The 232d container was sent to the Danish Construction Corporation a Thule Air Base contractor to serve as a model for modification and test of the eighty R-4360 cans arriving on the USNS TOWLE's second trip to Thule Since the USNS TOWLE was not due to return to Thule until 26 August the members of the task group returned to their home stations The Thule operations were secured and left in the custody of two task group members Their tasks included housekeeping maintaining daily surveillance over filled containers and to note any pressure build-up The on-site team reassembled and returned to Thule Air Base on 19 August Upon arrival additional modification of the previously filled cans was necessary A 0625-inch hole was drilled in the filler caps with a rubber surge chamber inserted to eliminate any possible air gas pressure build-up inside containers as they were transported from a 30-40 degree environment to the possible 90-100 degree temperature of the Southe'rn United States When the USNS TOWLE arrived on 21 August its cargo of an additional 80 unmodified R-4360 cans was taken to Hangar 1 for modification The last container was completed on 31 August The loading of the USNS TOWLE began with eight POL tanks 50 pallets of 192 drums and 268 filled R4360 cans during the period 26 August to 1 September Departing Thule's DeLong Pier on 2 September the USNS TOWLE headed for the Army Pier at Charleston South Carolina with a due date of 11 September When the USNS TOWLE arrived at the South Carolina pier railroad cars were waiting to take the contaminated debris to its final resting place Sixty-six cars were needed to carry the load which was moved at a speed of not more than 30 miles per hour The second ship the USNS MARINE FIDDLER arrived at Thule on 3 September and began ·loading fill 'Et UP Air- at Th le Ill conlaiaer with 111elted now _ pu111ped _ tho larger POl • FINAL OtEClt A radlologicol 111111itor dtecka for conta111inatlo11 of alpha portlclea on tho dothln9 of o pump lfanafer opfflltor by uaing PAC-1 S acintlllator detector Crested Ice retrograde cargo It departed on 17 September with forty-seven R-4360 cans and five 25 000gallon POL tanks 67 empty 25 000-gallon POL tanks and eleven 3 000- to 10 000- allon POL tanks of residue and the two F-6 refuel ing units The MARINE FIDDLER arrived in Charleston on 28 September with its cargo It was necessary to use 81 railcars to transport the containers To keep the material from sloshing to any great degree and because of the close clearances the train moved no faster than 20 miles per hour to its destination With Thule- Air Base secured the task group departed on 6 September after assuring that the former tank farm area was left clear and monitored to a zero contamination level The AFLC SAAMA project dose out responsibilities were completed -SUMMARY We would be remiss if we did not acknowledge the contributions made by the Danish Nationals assigned to Thule Air Base They were without exception professionals in their jobs and their cooperative and con• structive attitudes were outstanding The SAAMA team will long remember these fine people both for their proficiency and for the warm personal relationships that developed • Our only regret is that we could not have met with the Danes under happier circumstances 90 JAN FEB MAR 1970 • Pltoto MN fl -nn _ o 6 - ' Dt wo N separate articles our Danish colleagues ha e I reported on the extensive radioactivity measure- ments in the biosphere which they conducted at North Star Bay and in its surroundings This article adds to that picture the details of two supporting American programs One of these provided measurements of North Star Bay currents the other surveyed conditions on the ocean floor The ocean current measurement prognm was conceived in the early days of the operation before it was known wnat prooedures would be required to preclude any danger to plant or aniJ al life The currents were needed in order to estimate how the icle might drift following the spring breakup Although it was eventually decided that the ice at the aaah site should be cleaned up so that the original purpose of the current measurements disappeared the program did preaent an interesting operational problem at the time To measure the currents it was necessary to drill holes in· the ice through which current meten could be lowered At the same time it was possible to lower a camera with lights to the ocean floor in order to obtain the first data on the general n of the bottom Later wfiin the BatL cle of ice in the summer Air Force NIWJ i l c t o r personnel joined survey of the Bay area with the Danerin The U S contribution to U il- fort was to survey the bay bottom directly beneath _the crash site This part of the joittr survey besides-oa n buting to the general scientific bowledge of enviro ental conditions was designed to verify that any inated aircraft debris which might have broken through the ice was stably air em USAF NUCLEAR SAFErY situated on the bottom It was carried out with the use of a small research submenible the STAR III Submarine Test and Research Vehicle • These activities and their results are desaibed in the following paragraphs HYDROGRAPHIC SURVEY OPERATIONS Ateamoffourpenonnel from the U S Naval Oceanographic Office NAVOCEANO arrived at Thule Air Base on 25 March 1968 to measure the flow of currents in the Bay - Figure 1 shows the general area of their operation North Star Bay has two main channels The deepest water is in a channel from Kap Atholl on the southwestern end to Wolstenholme Fjord on the northeast Another relatively deep channel extends westward from Wolstenholme Fjord between Saunder Island and the mainland The channel between Saunder and Wolstenholme Islands is shoal water Maximum water depth in the general area of the crash site is approximately 135 · ·fathoms 247 meters • The geography of the area indicates four possible '·paths through which water might flow out of the area of the crash site • tween the northern tip of Saunder Island and Kap Abernathy on the mainland The STAR III is • sn1all two-man oceanasraphic ntN■n h subm n bl• equipped wilh lipls and camen1 II was leased by the Navy from Gen•nl Dyn■mica Elec iric Boat Division '-ill• diac ussion of NAVOCIANO operations is th• contribulion of Mr L J fisher and Dr 91 L R Breslau 10• • i1 •• • L • • • • II -r 7 i w ff • 41 • II I 69• 30' • a i • • I 69 • Between Saunder and Wolstenholme Islands and raising the current meters by nand • Between Wolstenholme Island and Kap Atholl on The current data were obtained with two types of the mainland meters-the Hydroproducts Model 5018 and the Geo• Into Wolstenholme Fjord dyne Model A-101 The Hydroproducts meter is a svsMidchannel current measurements were planned in tem with an integral recorder capable of unattended each of the four passages to determine the direction and recordi g of current speed dir ction and temperature speed of the current through these passages In addition for penods up to 30 days The record is a permanent current measurements were to be made at each of three analog plot that can be analvzed immediatelv after restations extending across the general area of the crash covery of the meter These meters were used· to obtain site on a line from Nasarssuak on Saunder Island to a 24-hour current record at each site The records were Nungavarssuk on the mainland The planned current analyzed as soon as possible to provide the on-site Strameasurement sites Figure 2 were precisely located by tegic Air Command SAC Disaster Control Team with a USAF geodetic survey team before the NAVOCEANO immediate information on the surface currents in the field operations began vicinity of the crash site The Geodvne meter is a svstem Original plans specified 24-hour surface and bottom capab e of_ recording up to 200 d ys of current peed cur ent measurement at each of the seven sites A string • and direction data The data are recorded as a digital of hve current meters was to be installed at Site I at the coded dot matrix on photographic film These meters be nnin of the operation for continual data recording were used to obtain a 7-dav record from five different unttl retrieval of the meter at the completion of the depths at Site l These data were not processed until operation Bottom photographs also were to be taken at • the field team returned to NAVOCEANO where the Sties I and 2 upon completion of the current measurenecessary processing facilities were available ments The current meters and camera were to be 'Ihe current meters were lowered through 2-foot lowered and raised with a winch mounted in a specially diameter holes drilled in the ice with the ice auger constructed mobile laboratory Since rapid deterioraThe thickness of the ice int e area ran'g ed from a minition of the ice prevented moving the heavy mobile _mum of 20 inches to a ma imum of 48 inches The data laboratory and camera lowering equipment to Sites 3 4 5 6 and 7 operations there were conducted lowering collected indicate that the currents in the area are pre92 JAN FEB MAR 1970 A 0 ' 0 05 T SAUNIIRtf 0 18 0 05 1 - 0 0 20 10 10 0 030 --lwOUTINM0LMI • J 0 40 030 0 15 ' _ - 0 40 - 0 - 1111 e r THULE 0 10 0 18 a'- '£ A I 0 15 - - I Ill BASE ' • Naruurasuk 1 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 1 NUMBERS INDICATE MAXIMUM SPEED IN KNOTS KAP ATHOtL I figure 2 69e 30 I I Hydroprod11ct1 Current Meter - - - - Summary of current data Geodyne Current M•••• dominately tidal Figure 2 is a summary of all the current data tThe cones extending from the site locations indicate the most frequently observed current directions at each site The numerals indicate the maximum current speed in knots recorded for each range of directions The final analysis of the data indicated that the currents measured during this operation were not strong enough to have any significant effect on the breakup of the ice Movement of the ice was thus dependent upon the wind directiou and speed The Air Force requested that bottom photographs be taken to determine the nature of the bottom in the general vicinity of the crash site Photographs taken at Site 1 at a depth of 240 meters indicated very little marine life and a soft bottom typical of an area of fine sediment deposition Photographs taken at Site 2 at a depth of 135 meters indicated an abundance of marine life and a rocky bottom typical of the sea bottom of the coastal waters and of an area scoured by bottom currents RESEARCH SUBMERSIBLE OPERATION During August 1968 three Air Force observers from the Directorate of Nuclear Safety and three subm_arine pilots from General Dynamics Electric Boat Division performed deep submergence operations in STAR III during the finlll phase of Crested Ice response These were the northernmost research submersible diving operations ever undertaken by the United States The U S Air Force received excellent support for the ocean bottom survey from the U S Navy the U S Coast Guard numerous contractors and suboontracton and the Danish Construction Corporation The Navy t When Nbmersed operatio111 bepn in Ausust tidal condition approx • mated those meuurecl duriq thia effort Tides were • little stronpr on one occasion Orllllnt o hole ht the ICII Supervisor of Salvage contracted with Ocean Systems Inc of Arlington Virginia to place the Air Force observers on the bottom of the Bay at the point of impact Various tasks of the effort were subcontracted The Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Groton Connecticut provided the submarine the necessary submarine support equipment photographic and video tape recording equipment and boat operations personnel John E Oiance and Associates of Baton Rouge Louisiana provided the surface navigation support to place submarine operations accurately in the survey area The U S Coast Guard Cutter WESTWINO was operating out of the port at Thule Air Base when plans for the ocean bottom survey were approved The commander at Thule Air Base who was the on-scene commander for this survey and his Military Sea Transport Service representative were successful in securing Coast Guard boats and crews from the WESTWIND who rendered invaluable assistance An arctic survey craft about 50 feet long performed the tow operations to get STAR III to and from the survey area An LCVP landing craft vehicle and personnel positioned reference lines on the bottom and buoys in the water and transferred essential materials and people during surface operations The submarine pilots assisted by C oast Guard divers braved 37° water in either wet-suits or dry-suits to disconnect or reconnect the towbar each time the submarine was towed to or from the survey site Communications weather helicopter crash rescue operations heavy equipment and its operation space and facilities protective clothing for arctic operations administrative and other logistic support for the survey were provided regularly and promptly throughout the effort The Thule Photography Laboratory worked throughout the diving operations to develop and print the still photographs taken of the Bay bottom Most diving operations during Crested Ice were con- $It• location ltl 111111 LtGINO olllGINAL SITE LOCATIOHS • 11Et OC T£0 SITU ducted to depths of 100 fathoms _600 feet or more The •ne life on the ocean bottom m North Star Bay conof shrimp various types of starfish bivah·es shelland barnacles Jellyfish and shrimp were iridescent a they scurried before the quartziodicle lamps rig-ged 011 ST - R III When the crew had sealed the diving sphere and were cleared for operations the STAR III began to descend slowly inching the conning tower below the surface as negative buoyancy built up - s soon as the boat was below the surface communications switched from radio to underwater telephone Boat lights were required for ·isibility below about 100 feet T11e water temperature also decreased as ST - R III descended but was measured at a constant 12· 7 at and below about 200 feet throughout more than 2 ·eeks of dh·ing The temperature inside the sealed sphere wa s comfortable although the steel sphere was cold to touch and condensed moisture profusely The crew described the sphere heated by the motors and equipment as the warmest spot in Greenland '' The oxygen supply and life support system required periodic checks for crew safetv but worked quite satisfactoril ' The checks consisted of measuring the percentage of oxygen and detecting any carbon dioxide in the diving sphere The life- rnpport system pro ·ided a continuous flow of oxygen from a regulator on a pressurized supply bottle Carbon dioxide was filtered out by recirculation through a chemical pack spare filters were carried inside the boat Water conditions and light intensity permitted the observers to see clearly out to 20 feet-sometimes beyond 25 feet The best visibility for the purposes of this operation was achieved by moving the boat forward slowly 6 to 18 inches off the bottom Most of the survey area revealed no evidence of the crash nor of years of human activity on the waves and ice above There was a wide variety of debris in some places on the bottom juice cans milk cartons candy bar wrappers and wrecka e One item observed was an A frame It was found 90 feet from the datum point on the first dive This A frame was used during the crash recovery and cleanup efforJ and left on the ice ben the ice melted it sank to the ocean floor and thus t ecame a marker of sorts 1 t h Macoma Calcarea shells and Ophiuraid1 on lhe bottom of North Siar lay helping to verify the datum point Another indication of the accuracy of the datum point was the presence of a crowbar standing in the silt Early in the accident investigation effort the crowbar had been dropped through a hole in the broken ice There were areas of concentrated wreckage but usuallv the concentration was light the pieces widely scattered and small often only a few square inches of surface area or a long slender piece of debris There were small pieces of crumpled sheet metal stringers dynamotors and pieces of wiring tubing and tires As expected the aircraft debris was stable and well fixed Over much of the survey area no wreckage existed The abund mce of coelenterate life on the sea floor contrasted sharply with the barren surroundings near Thule Starfish brig-htly colored mollusks and marine animal-flowers called anthozoans were plentiful In some ways the ocean bottom seemed an cnvironme11t less hostile to man than the surface until the extent of support needed for human survival was recalled Four and three-quarter hours was the maximum submerged time for underwater arctic operatibns with the STAR Ill submersible This allowed an average of 3 hours of productive survey time per dive Except for switching off and stowing any equipment not required for surfacing the boat the ascent sequence closelv resembled descent A elief pilot rode the STAR III as it was towed back to port which gave the dive crew a chance to relax The trip between the datum point and shore took about 2 hours On one occasion the fog started to move in past Kap Atholl and Saunder Island Tension mounted £or the team until the arctic cruiser had towed STAR III beyond the bigger icebergs Some difficulty plagued every dive In spite of some foul weather limits on time camera failures and icebergs STAR III and its support team performed the required submerged boat operations very well The surface navigation system repeatedly placed the team positively on their reference point during 11 diving operations The successful underwater survey helped to confirm previous joint scientific findings that there was no radiological hazard from the limited aircraft debris on the ocean floor below the point of the crash Arctic cruiser wilh STAR 111 in tow William A DeCourt of General Dynamics 111nters STAR 111 lo begin o dive EPIL06UE Fro• tl e Da■'81a Polat ol ¥lea THE Thule District in the northwestern part of Greenland is one of lthe most inhospitable places man has ever inhabited and except for the American air base near Thule hundreds of miles separate the isolated Thule Greenlander hunters from other permanent settlements Yet the Thule District is part of Denmark and it was evident that when suddenly faced with an unprecedented· and possibly dangerous situation the people there would first turn to Danish authorities for guidance and protection _ No danger to man or animal and plant life was created by the Thule accident-that is now a well established fact Within a week after the accident this was the preliminary view of American and Danish scientists applying usual scientific methods and working side by side although quite independently Through swift action and with the American and the Danish press as ever present witnesses a situation which obviously involved many problems was brought under control and unnecessary alarm avoided Although no one in Denmark had foreseen exactly this type of emergency it turned out that resources and most important willingness to put them into action were in fact available The record which has been given here is a tribute to the men of good will Americans and Danes who without regard to the rigours and discomforts gave their wholehearted support towards the solution of the problems at hand HANS HENRIK KOCH Permanent under-Secretary of State Chairman Executive Committee Qanllh Atomic Energy Commission EPILIUE HE Thule accident was a shock to us all We were saddened by the death of one of the crew and concerned with the harsh realities which would face our accident control team's efforts The threat that the unforgiving arctic climate could exact a further toll made the outlook ominous The situation seemed grim And yet from such a harsh beginning the days that followed saw a monumental performance by the team at Thule charged with surveying the accident scene and taking remedial housekeeping actions Under the leadership of General Hunziker Air Force personnel with the assistance of their colleagues from other services and of Danish and American scientists the cleanup moved forward rapidly in the most extreme climatic conditions Within a few months this team brought Project Crested Ice to a successful conclusion without further loss of life By September the contaminated debris and snow which was collected from the crash scene had all been removed from Greenland Furthermore an extensive ecological survey led by Danish scientists had reconfirmed that no hazard remained for animal or plant life This conclusion was due to the skill and devotion of all those involved It attested to the dedication of each participant We owe much to all those who participated on the American-Danish team Once again the record reveals that the combined efforts of men well-led can triumph over the greatest adversities T · CARLWALSKE Assistant to the Secretary of Defen• Atomic Energy f ll 4 4_ 4 ✓ - _