Maybe, just maybe, the US will allow Denmark to keep this part of Greenland.
Two Danish men allege they developed cancer after cleaning up plutonium-laden snow and ice from the site of a US bomber crash in Greenland that happened six decades ago.
Jeffrey Carswell and Heinz Eriksen, both now in their 80s, were among about 1,000 civilians who showed up in January 1968 when an American B-52 Stratofortress, which was carrying four hydrogen bombs, caught fire. It crashed in an arctic bay.
The accident took place roughly 11 miles from Thule Air Force Base and resulted in the death of one crew member out of seven.
Though the hydrogen bomb on board, which was about 1.1 megatons, didn’t explode, researchers suspect that the bomb’s outer cover did burst, dispersing radiation over a distance of about 300 yards along the aircraft’s path.
Most of the bombs were destroyed by the fire, yet at least one remains unaccounted for, according to BBC reports.
The crash released “trillions of respirable weapons-grade plutonium particles into the air and deposited on the sea ice and snow at the crash site and beyond,” the two claim in court documents while seeking compensation from the U.S. government.
Carswell, who worked as a transportation clerk, and Eriksen, a firefighter on base, both took part in Operation Crested Ice. They transported the contaminated material to a “protective structure” where it was placed into 217 tanks, each capable of holding approximately 25,000 gallons. These tanks were then sealed and shipped back to the US for cleanup, as outlined in court documents.
Eriksen often found himself in hangars where melted, contaminated snow and ice lay on the floor, sometimes extinguishing fires created during the sealing of plutonium-laced snow inside those metal tanks, according to court papers.
Carswell noted that he “frequently visited the tank farm” and was near the crash site, as mentioned in court documents.
Since then, Carswell has been battling stomach cancer for many years. He even published a book detailing his experiences during Operation Crested Ice, titled *Greenland – The B52 Radiation Disaster*.
The two men have been striving for acknowledgment and compensation from the U.S. government for decades. Carswell was diagnosed with stomach and esophageal cancer in the 1980s, undergoing several surgeries, while Eriksen had his cancerous left kidney removed in 2005.
Interestingly, an American who became ill after handling plutonium was later compensated under various federal programs. In contrast, Carswell, Eriksen, and other Danish civilians have not received similar treatment, even though Greenland is under Danish jurisdiction.
“We are dealing with corruption, misinformation, and a very slow response to our requests. It’s almost as if they’re hoping we’ll just give up,” Carswell, now 82, said. “But they should realize we’re not going anywhere.”
Recently, they filed a complaint in federal court in Manhattan to demand enforcement of Freedom of Information Act requests against Kevin Dressman, the former director of health and safety at the Energy Department, and Grady Calhoun, the current director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety.
They accuse Dressman and Calhoun of having private discussions about the failed June 2023 entry into the European Union while the Energy Employee Occupational Disease Compensation System Act offers benefits to federal employees who contract specific cancers due to their work.
“I spent five years working at Thule Air Base, and in that time, we were told there was no radiation risk,” said Carswell, a father of two, who also authored the book on the B-52 incident.
The civilians involved were volunteering as part of their usual jobs, unaware that they were inhaling dangerous radiation, according to attorney Ian Anderson.
According to Anderson, the two men represent “survivors” out of the roughly 400 who perished by the 1980s, estimating that only a few of those workers are still alive.
“These Danish workers willingly came to assist the U.S. during a manpower shortage related to the Vietnam War,” he noted.
While there have been discussions about the U.S. acquiring Greenland from Denmark, Carswell expressed skepticism about trusting the U.S. government, stating that any collaboration should be doubted.
After all these years of fighting for acknowledgment, a judge dismissed their case in 2021, siding with claims from medical experts that their cancers were not likely caused by plutonium—typically linked to lung, liver, and bone cancers, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Neither the Department of Energy nor the National Institute for Occupational Safety responded to inquiries.
