11 Nov 2008

US nuclear weapon lost in Arctic Circle

3:32 pm on 11 November 2008

The United States military abandoned a nuclear weapon deep inside the Arctic Circle in Greenland 40 years ago.

The BBC has learned that the bomb was lost after a B52 military aircraft carrying the weapon crashed on to sea ice.

The US Defence Department has always maintained that all four nuclear weapons on board were destroyed, but classified documents obtained by the BBC show that one weapon was left to decay - its radioactive material dispersing into the water.