http://news.sky.com/story/1144776/us-al ... ver-itself

Yes, there's quite the history of countries messing up flights with weapons and weapons-grade material.

They also dropped a couple in Spanish water some decades ago. They had to hunt for them as they were in deep water. They managed to retrieve them.

If it had detonated I'd bet the American response would have been 'nuke Russia first, ask questions later'.

At that stage of the cold war, even if both sides knew it was a terrible accident, any thermonuclear detonation in a populated area would probably have been taken as a go signal by both powers. The paranioa on both sides was too strict, each would assume the other was going to take advantage and so both would have put every bomb they could into the air.