{"id":4159010,"date":"2026-01-05T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/black-saturday-1962-b59-arkhipov-maultsby\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T22:26:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T20:26:56","slug":"black-saturday-1962-b59-arkhipov-maultsby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/de\/black-saturday-1962-b59-arkhipov-maultsby\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Saturday: Three Near-Misses in One Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style><\/p>\r\n<p>By the late afternoon of Saturday, 27 October 1962, the men of Soviet submarine B-59 had very little left to breathe. The boat had been at sea for almost four weeks, hiding from the US Navy in the warm water north of Cuba, and her batteries were nearly flat. With the air conditioning starved of power, the temperature in her compartments had climbed past 45 degrees Celsius \u2014 about 113 Fahrenheit \u2014 and towards 60 degrees in the engine spaces. Carbon dioxide crept up towards the limit of what a human body can take. According to the men who were there, sailors were fainting at their stations.<\/p>\r\n<p>Then the explosions started. Overhead, destroyers of the USS Randolph\u2019s hunter-killer group were rolling practice depth charges onto the contact they had been chasing all day. The charges were signals, not weapons \u2014 Washington had told Moscow that submarines would be asked to surface this way. But that message had never reached B-59. Her crew had heard nothing from home in days. All they knew was that the hull was ringing around them, again and again, in the dark.<\/p>\r\n<p>What happened next in that broiling control room \u2014 and what almost happened \u2014 would stay secret for forty years. And it was only one of three moments, all packed into this single Saturday, when the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly slipped out of everyone\u2019s hands. In Washington they came to call it Black Saturday. It earned the name three times over.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f5f5f5; border-radius: 8px; padding: 20px 24px; margin: 24px 0;\">\r\n<p style=\"margin: 0 0 10px; font-weight: bold; font-size: 17px;\">Quick Facts: Black Saturday, 27 October 1962<\/p>\r\n<table style=\"border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.6;\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 12px 4px 0; font-weight: 600; white-space: nowrap; vertical-align: top;\">The day<\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 0;\">The worst 24 hours of the Cuban Missile Crisis, with US strategic forces already at DEFCON 2<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 12px 4px 0; font-weight: 600; white-space: nowrap; vertical-align: top;\">Fuse one<\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 0;\">Major Rudolf Anderson\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/u-2-dragon-lady\">U-2<\/a> shot down by an SA-2 missile over Cuba \u2014 the crisis\u2019s only combat death<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 12px 4px 0; font-weight: 600; white-space: nowrap; vertical-align: top;\">Fuse two<\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 0;\">Captain Charles Maultsby\u2019s U-2 strays over Soviet Chukotka; MiGs scramble, US F-102s launch with nuclear-tipped missiles<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 12px 4px 0; font-weight: 600; white-space: nowrap; vertical-align: top;\">Fuse three<\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 0;\">Submarine B-59, under depth charges, prepares its nuclear torpedo \u2014 one officer, Vasili Arkhipov, says no<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 12px 4px 0; font-weight: 600; white-space: nowrap; vertical-align: top;\">The weapon below<\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 0;\">One T-5 torpedo with a nuclear warhead, commonly described as roughly Hiroshima-scale<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 12px 4px 0; font-weight: 600; white-space: nowrap; vertical-align: top;\">Kept secret until<\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 4px 0;\">2002, when Russian veterans and declassified records surfaced at a 40th-anniversary conference in Havana<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">One Day, Three Fuses<\/h2>\r\n<p>By that Saturday the crisis was twelve days old. Soviet medium-range missiles were being assembled in Cuba, a US naval quarantine ringed the island, and Strategic Air Command had gone to DEFCON 2 \u2014 one step short of general war \u2014 for the first time in its history. <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/b-52-stratofortress\">B-52s<\/a> loitered at their failsafe points. Invasion forces gathered in Florida. Two leaders were trading letters that might decide whether there would be a Monday.<\/p>\r\n<p>Newsreels from those days show a world holding its breath \u2014 and they had no idea how right they were to hold it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 24px 0;\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0; border-radius: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VNW8IVIiXIQ\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p>What the public could not see was how many separate fuses were burning at once, and how far they ran beyond anyone\u2019s control. Three of them nearly reached the powder on 27 October. One belonged to a pilot who died. One belonged to a pilot who got lost. And one belonged to a submarine officer whose name almost nobody would learn for four decades.<\/p>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">A Death Over Banes<\/h2>\r\n<p>The first fuse burned through at midday. Major Rudolf Anderson Jr., a 35-year-old U-2 pilot from South Carolina, was photographing military sites over eastern Cuba when a Soviet SA-2 surface-to-air missile burst beside his aircraft near the town of Banes. Shrapnel pierced his pressure suit. Anderson was killed \u2014 the only man to die by enemy fire in the entire crisis.<\/p>\r\n<p>The shootdown, ordered from below without Moscow\u2019s approval, convinced many in Washington that the Soviets were escalating deliberately \u2014 and brought the pressure for a full US strike on Cuba to its peak. Kennedy, remarkably, chose to absorb the blow rather than answer it. Anderson\u2019s story deserves more than a paragraph, and we have told it in full: <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/rudolf-anderson-u2-shootdown-cuban-missile-crisis\/\">the shootdown of Rudolf Anderson, the man Black Saturday killed<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">Lost at the Top of the World<\/h2>\r\n<p>The second fuse lit itself over the Arctic, before Anderson was even hit. Captain Charles \u201cChuck\u201d Maultsby \u2014 a former Thunderbirds display pilot who had survived two years as a prisoner of war in Korea \u2014 had taken off from Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, at midnight on a routine air-sampling mission to the North Pole, collecting fallout evidence from Soviet nuclear tests. Nobody had thought to cancel the flight just because the world was ending.<\/p>\r\n<p>Over the pole there is no compass worth trusting; a U-2 pilot navigated by the stars. That night the aurora borealis smeared the sky with light, and Maultsby\u2019s sextant fixes went subtly, fatally wrong. When he turned for home he was not flying towards Alaska. He was flying into the Soviet Union, nearly 1,000 miles off course, straight over the Chukotka Peninsula \u2014 in a type of aircraft the Soviets had every reason to treat as the tip of a nuclear spear.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin: 0 0 24px;\"><img data-opt-id=1957008135  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"max-width: 100%; height: auto; border-radius: 6px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/lockheed-u2-dragon-lady-takeoff.jpg\" alt=\"Lockheed U-2 Dragon Lady reconnaissance aircraft taking off\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" \/>\r\n<figcaption style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: 6px; font-style: italic;\">A U-2 Dragon Lady taking off. At the poles, its pilots navigated by sextant and stars \u2014 until the aurora borealis made the stars lie. US Air Force photo.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n<p>Soviet radar found him at once. MiG interceptors scrambled from Pevek and later Anadyr and shadowed the intruder for hundreds of miles, climbing towards a target their jets could not quite reach \u2014 the U-2 cruised above 70,000 feet, the MiGs topped out well below it. On the American side, the response was worse than symmetrical: two F-102 Delta Daggers rose from Galena to escort the stray home. Because the alert had been raised earlier that week, their conventional armament had been replaced with GAR-11 Falcon air-to-air missiles \u2014 each with a nuclear warhead.<\/p>\r\n<p>A navigation error had now put nuclear-armed American fighters and Soviet interceptors on converging courses at the edge of Soviet territory, on the very day both capitals were primed to read anything as the start of the war. When Defense Secretary Robert McNamara heard a U-2 was over Chukotka, the president was briefed within minutes. Kennedy\u2019s reply became famous.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f8f9fa; border-left: 4px solid #5C91FF; padding: 20px 22px; margin: 18px 0 24px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7;\"><em>\u201cThere\u2019s always some son of a bitch who doesn\u2019t get the word.\u201d<\/em>\r\n<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; font-size: 14px; color: #555;\"><strong>John F. Kennedy<\/strong> \u2014 on hearing of Maultsby\u2019s overflight, 27 October 1962<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<p>Maultsby, meanwhile, was saved by a whisper. American radio operators had found him, and a command post reached him with a strange instruction: turn left until Orion\u2019s Belt sat off his right wingtip. Steering home by a constellation, his engine finally starved of fuel, he glided in silence for the better part of an hour and dead-sticked the U-2 onto a small airstrip at Kotzebue, Alaska. He had been airborne 10 hours and 25 minutes \u2014 reportedly the longest U-2 flight ever made, and very nearly the most expensive.<\/p>\r\n<p>Maultsby was never blamed; the mission had been flown exactly as ordered, which was precisely the problem. McNamara cancelled all further polar sampling flights the same day. The full story of the wandering U-2 has since become one of the great what-ifs of the crisis.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 24px 0;\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0; border-radius: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/40sq32I0jvY\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">The Barrel and the Sledgehammer<\/h2>\r\n<p>The third fuse was underwater, and it had been smouldering for weeks. On 1 October, four Foxtrot-class diesel submarines had sailed from the Kola Peninsula for Cuba. Each carried 21 conventional torpedoes \u2014 and one more in the bow room that the crews spoke of carefully: a T-5 with a nuclear warhead, commonly described as roughly Hiroshima-scale. The Americans hunting them had no idea the weapons were aboard.<\/p>\r\n<p>On 27 October the US Navy finally pinned B-59 and set about forcing her up. The men inside had no way to know the depth charges were meant as a doorbell \u2014 the US had announced the surfacing procedure through diplomatic channels, but the notice never reached the boats. Vadim Orlov, the radio-intercept officer aboard, described the bombardment in an account made public in 2002 \u2014 the fullest we have, though other veterans have disputed parts of it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f8f9fa; border-left: 4px solid #5C91FF; padding: 20px 22px; margin: 18px 0 24px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7;\"><em>\u201cIt felt like you were sitting in a metal barrel, which somebody is constantly blasting with a sledgehammer.\u201d<\/em>\r\n<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; font-size: 14px; color: #555;\"><strong>Vadim Orlov<\/strong> \u2014 radio-intercept officer aboard B-59, in his 2002 recollections<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<p>Hours of it, on top of the heat and the foul air, pushed the boat to the edge. Her captain, Valentin Savitsky, could not reach the General Staff. As far as he knew, the war he had been sent out to fight might already be burning above his head.<\/p>\r\n<p>By Orlov\u2019s account, the exhausted Savitsky ordered the nuclear torpedo assembled to battle readiness, shouting that there might be a war raging up there while they were doing somersaults in the deep.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f8f9fa; border-left: 4px solid #5C91FF; padding: 20px 22px; margin: 18px 0 24px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7;\"><em>\u201cWe\u2019re going to blast them now. We will die, but we will sink them all. We will not disgrace our navy.\u201d<\/em>\r\n<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; font-size: 14px; color: #555;\"><strong>Captain Valentin Savitsky<\/strong> \u2014 as recalled by Vadim Orlov; the exact wording is disputed by some veterans<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<p>On B-59, uniquely among the four boats, the decision was not the captain\u2019s alone. The brigade\u2019s chief of staff, Vasili Arkhipov, was embarked on this submarine, and by most accounts the launch needed his agreement along with the captain\u2019s and that of the political officer, Ivan Maslennikov \u2014 though historians still argue over the exact authorisation rules that night.<\/p>\r\n<p>What matters is what he did. Arkhipov \u2014 a quiet 36-year-old who had already lived through the reactor disaster aboard the missile submarine K-19 the year before \u2014 refused, and set about talking his captain down: the charges were falling wide, the ships above were signalling, not killing. A warship trying to sink a submarine does not miss on purpose, over and over, for hours.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin: 0 0 24px;\"><img data-opt-id=1652601736  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"max-width: 100%; height: auto; border-radius: 6px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/vasili-arkhipov-soviet-navy-officer-portrait.jpg\" alt=\"Vasili Arkhipov, Soviet Navy officer who refused to authorise the nuclear torpedo aboard B-59\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" \/>\r\n<figcaption style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: 6px; font-style: italic;\">Vasili Arkhipov. He had already survived K-19\u2019s reactor accident in 1961; on 27 October 1962 he talked a captain out of a nuclear torpedo. Photo: Wikimedia Commons \/ CC BY-SA 4.0.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n<p>Savitsky relented. B-59 surfaced into a ring of American destroyers, searchlights and circling aircraft, reported her position to Moscow, and eventually turned east for home. To the US Navy crews watching her wallow up out of the black water, it was a procedural victory \u2014 a Soviet boat forced to show herself.<\/p>\r\n<p>None of them had any idea what had nearly come out of her bow tube. Nobody on the American side would know for forty years.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 24px 0;\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0; border-radius: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8dIUpY4rlJ0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">What Havana Revealed<\/h2>\r\n<p>The truth surfaced in October 2002, at a conference in Havana marking the crisis\u2019s 40th anniversary, where Russian veterans \u2014 Orlov among them \u2014 and newly declassified records laid out what had happened aboard the submarines. Robert McNamara himself sat among the listeners.<\/p>\r\n<p>The revelation that the Foxtrots had carried nuclear torpedoes at all \u2014 and that one crew had come within an argument of using one \u2014 landed on the room like a delayed depth charge. The director of the US National Security Archive, which helped convene the conference, put it as plainly as a historian ever has.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f8f9fa; border-left: 4px solid #5C91FF; padding: 20px 22px; margin: 18px 0 24px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7;\"><em>\u201cA guy called Vasili Arkhipov saved the world.\u201d<\/em>\r\n<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; font-size: 14px; color: #555;\"><strong>Thomas Blanton<\/strong> \u2014 director of the National Security Archive, 2002<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<p>Kennedy\u2019s own advisor Arthur Schlesinger Jr., looking back at that Saturday, called it not only the most dangerous moment of the Cold War but the most dangerous moment in human history. Arkhipov heard none of it. He had died in 1998, a retired vice admiral, largely unknown outside his own navy \u2014 his health, like that of many K-19 survivors, reportedly undermined by the radiation he absorbed in 1961. In 2017 his family accepted the first Future of Life Award on his behalf.<\/p>\r\n<p>That same Saturday evening in Washington, Robert Kennedy quietly offered the Soviet ambassador a deal \u2014 the missiles out of Cuba, older American missiles out of Turkey, never to be spoken of. By Sunday morning Khrushchev had announced the withdrawal.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin: 0 0 24px;\"><img data-opt-id=1834742074  decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"max-width: 100%; height: auto; border-radius: 6px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/excomm-meeting-cuban-missile-crisis-october-1962.jpg\" alt=\"President Kennedy meets with the EXCOMM during the Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" \/>\r\n<figcaption style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: 6px; font-style: italic;\">Kennedy\u2019s EXCOMM in session on 29 October 1962, two days after Black Saturday, as the crisis wound down. White House photo, public domain.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n<p>The crisis ended not because the machinery of deterrence worked, but because \u2014 at least three times in one day \u2014 it briefly depended on people instead. A dead pilot whose loss was absorbed rather than avenged, a lost navigator steered home by a constellation, and a submariner\u2019s stubborn calm: that was the margin. It is worth remembering how narrow it was, every time someone calls nuclear weapons stabilising.<\/p>\r\n<p><em>Sources: National Security Archive (Orlov recollections, trans. Svetlana Savranskaya); Michael Dobbs, One Minute to Midnight; PBS Secrets of the Dead; Air &amp; Space Forces Magazine; Anchorage Daily News; Wikipedia. Where veterans\u2019 accounts conflict, we say so.<\/em><\/p>\r\n<!-- mf-faq -->\r\n\r\n\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-block\"><style>.mf-faq-block{margin:34px 0}.mf-faq-item:not([open]) .mf-faq-answer{display:none !important}.mf-faq-block h2.mf-faq-h{padding-top:22px;margin-bottom:14px}.mf-faq-item{border:1px solid #e2e8f5;border-radius:8px;margin:0 0 10px;background:#fff}.mf-faq-item summary{list-style:none;cursor:pointer;padding:15px 50px 15px 18px;font-weight:600;color:#1a1a1a;position:relative;line-height:1.45;user-select:none}.mf-faq-item summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mf-faq-item summary::after{content:\"+\";position:absolute;right:18px;top:50%;transform:translateY(-50%);font-size:1.5em;font-weight:400;color:#5C91FF;line-height:1}.mf-faq-item[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mf-faq-item[open] summary{border-bottom:1px solid #eef1f8}.mf-faq-item summary:hover{background:#f5f8ff}.mf-faq-answer{padding:14px 18px;color:#333;line-height:1.6}.mf-faq-answer p{margin:0}.mf-faq-answer a{color:#5C91FF}<\/style>\r\n<h2 class=\"mf-faq-h\">Related Questions<\/h2>\r\n<details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>What was Black Saturday during the Cuban Missile Crisis?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>Black Saturday, 27 October 1962, was the most dangerous day of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In a single day a US U-2 pilot was shot down and killed over Cuba, another U-2 strayed into Soviet airspace, and a Soviet submarine crew nearly launched a nuclear torpedo \u2014 three separate incidents that each pushed the superpowers toward the brink of nuclear war.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>Who was Rudolf Anderson?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>Major Rudolf Anderson Jr. was a 35-year-old US Air Force U-2 pilot and the only person killed by enemy fire during the Cuban Missile Crisis. On 27 October 1962 his reconnaissance aircraft was hit by a Soviet SA-2 surface-to-air missile near Banes, Cuba, and shrapnel pierced his pressure suit. You can read his full story in <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/rudolf-anderson-u2-shootdown-cuban-missile-crisis\/\">this account of his final flight<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>Who was Vasili Arkhipov and what did he do?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>Vasili Arkhipov was a Soviet naval officer aboard submarine B-59 on 27 October 1962. As US destroyers dropped signalling depth charges, the overheated, out-of-contact crew considered firing a nuclear torpedo. Arkhipov, whose agreement was reportedly required, refused and talked the captain down \u2014 an act widely credited with preventing nuclear war. He had already survived the K-19 reactor accident the year before.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>Why did a US U-2 fly into Soviet airspace during the crisis?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>On 27 October 1962, pilot Charles Maultsby, flying an air-sampling mission near the North Pole, became lost and accidentally strayed into Soviet airspace over Chukotka \u2014 on the very day both capitals were primed to read anything as the start of war. Guided home partly by the stars, he glided his fuel-starved U-2 to a landing in Alaska after more than ten hours aloft.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>Why was the Cuban Missile Crisis so close to nuclear war?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>Because multiple crises unfolded at once, largely beyond leaders' control. On 27 October 1962 alone, a U-2 was shot down, another blundered into Soviet airspace, and a submarine crew nearly launched a nuclear torpedo. It stands among the Cold War's <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/nuclear-near-disasters-cold-war-series\/\">closest brushes with nuclear catastrophe<\/a>, alongside accidents like the 1961 <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/goldsboro-1961-b52-broken-arrow-hydrogen-bombs\/\">Goldsboro B-52 incident<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>Did the submarine B-59 have nuclear weapons?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>Yes. Soviet submarine B-59 carried a nuclear-tipped torpedo during the Cuban Missile Crisis. On 27 October 1962, cut off from Moscow and enduring temperatures above 45\u00b0C with failing batteries and rising carbon dioxide, its crew believed war might already have begun. Firing the torpedo reportedly required the agreement of officer Vasili Arkhipov, who refused, defusing the moment.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><\/div>\r\n<p><script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What was Black Saturday during the Cuban Missile Crisis?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Black Saturday, 27 October 1962, was the most dangerous day of the Cuban Missile Crisis. 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You can read his full story in <a href=\\\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/rudolf-anderson-u2-shootdown-cuban-missile-crisis\/\\\">this account of his final flight<\/a>.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Who was Vasili Arkhipov and what did he do?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Vasili Arkhipov was a Soviet naval officer aboard submarine B-59 on 27 October 1962. As US destroyers dropped signalling depth charges, the overheated, out-of-contact crew considered firing a nuclear torpedo. Arkhipov, whose agreement was reportedly required, refused and talked the captain down \u2014 an act widely credited with preventing nuclear war. He had already survived the K-19 reactor accident the year before.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Why did a US U-2 fly into Soviet airspace during the crisis?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"On 27 October 1962, pilot Charles Maultsby, flying an air-sampling mission near the North Pole, became lost and accidentally strayed into Soviet airspace over Chukotka \u2014 on the very day both capitals were primed to read anything as the start of war. Guided home partly by the stars, he glided his fuel-starved U-2 to a landing in Alaska after more than ten hours aloft.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Why was the Cuban Missile Crisis so close to nuclear war?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Because multiple crises unfolded at once, largely beyond leaders' control. On 27 October 1962 alone, a U-2 was shot down, another blundered into Soviet airspace, and a submarine crew nearly launched a nuclear torpedo. It stands among the Cold War's <a href=\\\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/nuclear-near-disasters-cold-war-series\/\\\">closest brushes with nuclear catastrophe<\/a>, alongside accidents like the 1961 <a href=\\\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/goldsboro-1961-b52-broken-arrow-hydrogen-bombs\/\\\">Goldsboro B-52 incident<\/a>.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Did the submarine B-59 have nuclear weapons?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Yes. Soviet submarine B-59 carried a nuclear-tipped torpedo during the Cuban Missile Crisis. On 27 October 1962, cut off from Moscow and enduring temperatures above 45\u00b0C with failing batteries and rising carbon dioxide, its crew believed war might already have begun. Firing the torpedo reportedly required the agreement of officer Vasili Arkhipov, who refused, defusing the moment.\"}}]}<\/script><!-- \/mf-faq -->\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f5f5f5; border-radius: 8px; padding: 20px 24px; margin: 28px 0 8px;\">\r\n<p style=\"margin: 0 0 10px; font-weight: bold; font-size: 17px;\">Related Posts<\/p>\r\n<ul style=\"margin: 0; padding-left: 20px; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.8;\">\r\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/rudolf-anderson-u2-shootdown-cuban-missile-crisis\/\">The Shootdown of Rudolf Anderson: Black Saturday\u2019s Only Casualty<\/a><\/li>\r\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/shot-down-over-the-urals-the-u-2-spy-plane-incident\/\">Shot Down Over the Urals: The U-2 Spy Plane Incident<\/a><\/li>\r\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/u-2-dragon-lady-reprieve-fy2027-congress-blocks-retirement-2026\/\">The U-2 Dragon Lady Gets Another Reprieve<\/a><\/li>\r\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/b-52-stratofortress-70-years-new-engines-rolls-royce-f130-b-52j-100-years\/\">The B-52 at 70: Flying Towards Its Own Centenary<\/a><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By the late afternoon of Saturday, 27 October 1962, the men of Soviet submarine B-59 had very little left to breathe. The boat had been at sea for almost four weeks, hiding from the US Navy in the warm water north of Cuba, and her batteries were nearly flat. With the air conditioning starved of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":4158142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4159010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Black Saturday 1962: Three Nuclear Near-Misses<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On 27 October 1962 \u2014 Black Saturday \u2014 submarine B-59, a stray U-2 and a shoot-down over Cuba nearly turned the missile crisis into nuclear war.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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