In military terminology, “Broken Arrow” is an accident involving a nuclear bomb that does not result in detonation. From 1950-1980, there were 21 declassified incidents where nuclear bombs were lost, accidentally dropped, ejected from a plane for safety reasons, or on planes that crashed. One of the most serious occurred on Jan. 17, 1966. It involved a B-52 bomber that was taking part in Operation Chrome Dome. During the height of the Cold War, the U.S. Air Force had nuclear bomb carrying bombers in the air at all times in case of the outbreak of war. This bomber had taken off from North Carolina and had flown to the edge of the Soviet Union and then back. It was a routine mission. The refueling was supposed to be routine also. The B-52 was to refuel from a KC-135 tanker over the Mediterranean near the coast of Spain. The fuel came from a boom that would hook up with the bomber. The bomber came in too fast and the boom operator did not wave the pilot off. The boom struck the top of the bomber and then the left wing which resulted in an explosion that consumed both ships. All four crew of the tanker were killed and 3 of the 7 bomber crew died. The four bombs fell. Each were the equivalent to 1.5 megatons of TNT (for comparison, the Hiroshima bomb was about 17 kilotons). Three of them fell at the farming village of Palomores. One landed intact in a dry riverbed. The conventional explosives on the other two exploded, but a nuclear explosion did not occur as safety features worked. However, there was radioactive contamination from the plutonium. No one in the village was hurt, but 2.6 square kilometers of mostly farmland became uninhabitable. The U.S. government paid $600,000 in compensation. 1,400 tons of radioactive soil was removed from 650 acres and brought to a storage facility in the U.S. Parts of the land are still fenced off. The fourth bomb fell into the sea. The Air Force swallowed its pride and asked the Navy for help. Numerous ships took part in the search and after 80 days it was discovered at 25,000 feet. The first attempt to raise it failed, but two weeks later on April 6 the unexploded bomb was brought up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash
https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/broken-arrow-accidents
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/h-bomb-lost-in-spain
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