Indiana Jones got lucky with a refrigerator.
The movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull contains what has to be the most harrowing escape scene in cinematic history.
Here is the scene:
Cutting to the chase:
Although Dr. Jones took a wild ride, he was still better off than the real American soldiers who took part in the 1957 war games that involved actual nuclear blasts. A 01 December 2011 article by Cracked magazine describes what happened:
“Between May and December 1957, the U.S. military began a series of war games meant to simulate a Soviet invasion of California. For added authenticity, they decided to conduct these games in the vicinity of an actual nuclear explosion, presumably because the local fireworks depot was all out of dry ice and smoke bombs. As many as 16,000 soldiers maneuvered dangerously close to the blast sites of various atomic bombs for tests with names like Troop Test Smokey, which was presumably launched by its adorable bear mascot. All in, a total of 250,000 people were involved in the entire operation. . .
The toll of all this Red Dawning was later estimated at 38,000 thyroid tumors developing and 1,900 people dying, but, once again, that was determined only after fighting the government in court and gathering overwhelming evidence. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the government began offering compensation to anyone.”
Although those atomic bombings were intentional, not all were. On 11 March 1958, an Air Force B-47 Stratojet accidentally dropped an atomic bomb on a family in Mars Bluff, South Carolina.
The cause of the accident is described by How Stuff Works:
The Mark 6 bomb that fell onto this remote area of South Carolina weighed 7,600 pounds (3.4 metric tons) and was 10 feet, 8 inches (3.3 meters) long. With a maximum diameter of 61 inches (1.5 meters), the Mark 6 had an inflated, cartoon-like quality, reminiscent of something Wile E. Coyote would order from the ACME Co. Its capabilities, however, were no laughing matter.
Earlier that day, a specialized crew was part of a training exercise that would require the bomb to be loaded into an airplane and flown from Savannah, Georgia, to England. As the mock mission, detailed in this American Heritage account, began, it took more than an hour to load the bomb into the plane. After placing the bomb into a shackle mechanism designed to keep it in place, the crew had a hard time getting a steel locking pin to engage. They solved the issue by lifting the weight of the plane’s bomb shackle mechanism and putting it onto a sling, then hitting the offending pin with a hammer until it locked into position.
The mission was being timed, and the crew was under pressure to catch up. Following regulations, the captain disengaged the locking pin from the nuclear weapon so it could be dropped in an emergency during takeoff. When the airplane reached altitude, he tried to re-engage the pin from the cockpit controls, but because of the earlier makeshift solution, it wouldn’t budge. The pilot asked the bombardier to leave his post and engage the pin by hand — something the bombardier had never done before. In fact, he didn’t even know where the pin was located. After searching for more than 10 minutes, he pulled himself up to look over the bomb’s curved belly.
Unfortunately, as he was trying to steady himself, the bombardier chose the emergency bomb-release mechanism for his handhold. The nuclear bomb immediately dropped from its shackle and landed, for just an instant, on the closed bomb-bay doors.
That bombardier barely missed impersonating Major Kong as he watched the bomb-bay doors open and the bomb fall.
Business Insider reports this:
Here is a news reel about the accident:
Oh, here is Major Kong riding his own atomic bomb:
Dr. Strangelove, please call your office.
Featured Image is a computer screenshot from Fandango Movie Clips.
The “Wanted” posters say the following about David: “Wanted: A refugee from planet Melmac masquerading as a human. Loves cats. If seen, contact the Alien Task Force.”