page_title: U.S. nuclear weapons in Japan
section_title: 1968 B-52 Crash at Kadena Air Base
hierarchical_section_title: U.S. nuclear weapons in Japan / Nuclear weapons accidents / 1968 B-52 Crash at Kadena Air Base
caption_attribution_description: English: Artillery projectiles Chibana Ammunition Depot, Okinawa, February 1969
context_page_description: United States nuclear weapons were stored secretly at bases throughout Japan following World War II. Secret agreements between the two governments allowed nuclear weapons to remain in Japan until 1972, to move through Japanese territory, and for the return of the weapons in time of emergency.
context_section_description: On November 19, 1968, a U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command B-52D Stratofortress with a full bomb load, broke up and caught fire after the plane aborted takeoff at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa before an Operation Arc Light bombing mission to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The pilot was able to keep the plane on the ground and bring the aircraft to a stop while preventing a much larger catastrophe. The aircraft came to rest near the edge of the Kadena's perimeter, some 250 meters from the Chibana Ammunition Depot.
  The crash led to demands to remove the B-52s from Okinawa and strengthened a push for the reversion from U.S. rule in Okinawa. Okinawans had correctly suspected that the Chibana depot held nuclear weapons. The crash, together with a nerve gas leak from Chibana Depot the following year sparked fears that another potential disaster on the island could put the chemical and nuclear stockpile and the surrounding population in jeopardy and increased the urgency of moving them to a less populated and less active storage location.
caption: Thousands of artillery projectiles at Chibana Army Ammunition Depot, February 1969
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