Beyond Nuclear International Weekly Digest, MONDAY, APRIL 6, 2026:When the US nearly nuked Spain

Posted: 6th April 2026

Michael Ketterer delivers a personal perspective on the Palomares atomic weapons disaster when the US accidentally dropped plutonium bombs on Spain 60 years ago. And this week is your last chance to get 40% off Linda Pentz Gunter’s book No to Nuclear.

When the US nearly nuked Spain

Before dawn, on January 17, 1966, two US planes collided - one armed with nuclear weapons - over the Iberian Peninsula during a mid-air refueling operation. Three thermonuclear bombs fell to the land, and a fourth into the sea, near Palomares, Spain. It is a disaster little known and uncompensated, even though, writes Ketterer, “Palomares is akin to a sandbox full of plutonium, it never was properly cleaned up, and the large majority of the Pu remains in the soils”. READ MORE

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