More than 30 of them.
, a B-36 carrying nuclear warheads was en route from Eielson Air Force Base to Carswell Air Force Base on a training mission. The warhead in question, a Mark IV atomic bomb,The weapon in question was roughly comparable to the nuke dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. However, it was not, technically speaking, a viable nuclear bomb. It contained large amounts of uranium, and also lots of conventional high explosives, but lacked the plutonium core necessary to actually trigger a nuclear blast.
The engine loss also hindered the aircraft from maintaining level flight for very long. To prevent the situation from becoming even more serious, and following military protocol to deny the weapon to potential hostile forces, the crew of the B-36 jettisoned their payload into the Pacific Ocean at around 8,000 feet altitude.
The failing plane’s autopilot was set to steer it on a course toward the open ocean while the crew parachuted into the sea over Princess Royal Island on the coast of British Columbia. The abandoned B-36 eventually crashed into the flank of remote Mount Kologet, in Canada, where it was found three years later. Twelve of the 17 crew members were recovered alive, including one man found dangling upside-down in a tree.2.
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