Glowing Greenland: Danes who cleaned up a US nuclear bomber crash in 1968 say radiation gave them cancer
Maybe the US will let Denmark keep this part of Greenland.Two Danes claim they developed cancer after helping to clean up plutonium-contaminated snow and ice after an American bomber crash in Greenland six decades ago.Jeffrey Carswell and Heinz Eriksen, now in their 80s, were among 1,000 civilians who answered the call for help in January 1968, after an American B-52 Stratofortress carrying four hydrogen bombs caught fire and crashed in the North Star Bay.The disaster, about seven miles from the Thule Air Force base, killed one of the seven-member crew.The 1.1 megaton hydrogen bombs aboard didn’t detonate, but researchers believe the outer coverings exploded, releasing radiation about 300 yards on either side of the plane’s path.While most of the bombs were destroyed by the fire, at least one couldn’t be accounted for, according to the BBC.The crash “released trillions of respirable particles of weapons grade plutonium into the air, settling on the sea-ice and snow of the crash site and beyond,” the pair said in court papers seeking compensation from the US government.Carswell, a shipping clerk, and Eriksen, a fireman at the base, took part in Operation Crested Ice, which carted contaminated snow and ice to a “sheltered structure,” with workers pouring the toxic substance into 217 tanks, about 25,000-gallons each, which were then welded shut and sent stateside for remediation, they said in court papers.Eriksen often worked in hangars with floors covered in water from melted, contaminated snow and ice and had put out fires from the welding which sealed the plutonium-infused snow inside metal tanks, according to court papers.Carswell said he “frequently went to the tank farm” and traveled near the crash site, court documents showed.The two men have battled for recognition and money from the US government for decades, after Carswell was diagnosed in the 1980s with stomach and esophageal cancer and had several surgeries, and Eriksen had his cancerous ...