Contamination
At 10:40 am UTC, the accident was reported at the Command Post of the Sixteenth Air Force, and it was confirmed at 11:22. The commander of the U.S. Air Force at Torrejon Air Base, Spain, Major General Delmar E. Wilson, immediately traveled to the scene of the accident with a Disaster Control Team. Further Air Force personnel were dispatched later the same day, including nuclear experts from U.S. government laboratories.
The first weapon to be discovered was found nearly intact. However, the conventional explosives from the other two bombs that fell on land detonated without setting off a nuclear explosion (akin to a dirty bomb explosion). This ignited the pyrophoric plutonium, producing a cloud that was dispersed by a 30-knot wind. A total of 260 ha (2 square kilometres (0.8 sq mi)) was contaminated with radioactive material. This included residential areas, farmland (especially tomato farms) and woods. A campaign to obtain compensation for the local labourers that was spearheaded by the Duchess of Medina Sidonia, Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo, led to a 13 month prison sentence for the Red Duchess, as she was subsequently known.
To defuse alarm of contamination, on 8 March the Spanish minister for information and tourism Manuel Fraga Iribarne and the US ambassador Angier Biddle Duke swam on nearby beaches in front of press. First the ambassador and some companions swam at Mojácar (a resort 15 km (9 mi) away) and then Duke and Fraga swam at the Quitapellejos beach in Palomares.
Despite the cost and number of personnel involved in the cleanup, forty years later there remained traces of the contamination. Snails have been observed with unusual levels of radioactivity. Additional tracts of land have also been appropriated for testing and further cleanup. However, no indication of health issues has been discovered among the local population in Palomares.
Read more about this topic: 1966 Palomares B-52 Crash