Denmark’s worst nuclear accident of all time – the 21 January 1968 crash during the Cold War of a US Air Force B-52G bomber carrying four 1.1-megaton atomic bombs, near the Thule Air Base in Greenland – was yesterday revived via a live tweet by Danish production outfit Toolbox Film, to introduce Danish director Christina Rosendahl’s upcoming thriller, The Idealist.
It is 4:39 pm: the US bomber is on fire on the sea ice, and the fire has detonated the high explosives in the four B28 bombs, causing a leak of radioactive plutonium contamination. There is hectic diplomatic activity between the US and Denmark. Still it took almost 20 years before Danish TV reporter Poul Brink asked the question, “What was this warplane doing over Danish territory?”
Brink won the Danish journalists’ Cavling Award for uncovering how the population was deluded by the government, which allowed the Americans to store nuclear weapons at the Thule Base, against its official policy. He researched the facts, and those surrounding the crash, for almost ten years for his 1997 book The Thule Case – The Universe of Lies. Brink died in 2002, aged 49.
Continue reading at Live tweet of Denmark’s worst nuclear accident ahead of new film
