How Many Lost Nuclear Weapons are there?

Since the 1950s, when the Cold War was starting and both sides were experimenting wildly with their nuclear weapons, some nuclear powers have managed to lose a few nukes.
These losses usually happen as a result of an accident of some sort. Accidents involving nuclear weapons (accidental detonation, theft, misfiring, etc) are referred to as broken arrows.
But let’s focus specifically on those nukes that are lost, unaccounted for, or missing.
Some may think the number is small, perhaps a few nuclear warheads missing thanks to an accident here or there - probably a single digit. Well, in total, there are at least 40 nuclear warheads that are missing worldwide.
And that’s just those that the global powers acknowledge are missing.
One of the first instances of this happening was in March 1956 when a US Air Force B-47 bomber went missing during a routine mission from Florida to an overseas base. The plane carried two nuclear weapon cores, and it went missing somewhere over the Mediterranean Sea. The plane, and its nuclear weapons, were never heard of again.
There was also the time in December 1965 when an A-4E Skyhawk light attack airplane “fell off” the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ticonderoga. The plane carried a 1 megaton nuclear device that was never found. It took the US Navy 15 years to admit that this had taken place at all. It happened near a Japanese island chain and caused much controversy with the Japanese, who did not allow nuclear weapons in their territory.
But perhaps the scariest and most controversial broken arrow was the sinking of the Soviet K-219 submarine.
This submarine carried 32 nuclear warheads. It sank 680 miles off the coast of Bermuda due to an explosion and fire in a missile tube.
Soviet authorities claimed this happened due to a collision with the USS Augusta submarine, though American authorities (and the surviving K- 219 Soviet commander) deny this.
In total, this sinking caused the deaths of four crew members - including Sergei Preminin, who died shutting down the submarine’s nuclear reactor. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star for his bravery.
Fortunately, most crew members were able to evacuate the sinking K- 219.
Now what really sets this incident apart from the others is what happened after the remains of the submarine were found.
A Soviet research ship managed to locate the remains of the K-219, which had been split in two by the water pressure. They took photographs of the wreckage.
It turned out that the missile silo hatches were forced open (with tool marks visible), and all nuclear warheads were missing from the wreckage.
Many believe that the K-219 did crash with the USS Augusta and that the United States got a hold of those nuclear warheads - but the US denies this.
No country or organization has ever claimed responsibility for taking those 32 nuclear warheads. There are wild theories about what happened to them, but what makes this incident the most unnerving is that we’ll likely never know.
This single accident accounts for a majority of known missing nuclear weapons, but the other accidents were also numerous. Many of the missing nukes are probably rusting away somewhere on the seafloor, many are probably no longer functional. But with so many incidents like this having happened, we can only wonder just how many were recovered - and by whom.
Editing by Myles Adoh-Phillips
Written by Lucas L

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