History Main / UnplannedManualDetonation

[[folder:Film]]

* ''Franchise/{{Star Wars|Legends}}: Literature/NewJediOrder: [[ColonCancer Force Heretic III]]: Reunion'' (how's ''that'' for a title?) features a scene of this type involving a gigantic {{Booby Trap}}ped signal transmitter. The bad guys manage to damage the explosives and one of the heroes has to go back and trigger the manual override -- and since there isn't a delay, [[HeroicSacrifice it'll have to be a one-way trip]]. A wounded character suspected of being TheMole volunteers on the grounds that his environment suit is damaged and therefore he won't survive the trip back to their base. After some deliberation, the heroes decide to send him in [[spoiler: and he succeeds, destroying a large number of enemy warriors in the process, but leaving the question of who the mole was, if not him]].

* ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'': After flying debris from the asteroid damaged the nuke's triggering device, someone has to stay behind to manually detonate the bomb. The crew draw straws and A.J. is selected, but Harry takes his place, giving him his blessing to marry Grace.

* In the British propaganda movie ''The Silver Fleet'' (1943), a Dutch submarine engineer is forced to collaborate with the German occupiers but is secretly a member of LaResistance. After several acts of sabotage make them suspicious, the Germans insist he accompany them on the sea trial of the submarine he's designed. As there is no other means of destroying the submarine, he sabotages it in a HeroicSacrifice during the trial.

* ''The Tango Briefing'' (1973) by Adam Hall. British spy Literature/{{Quiller}} must use a small nuclear weapon (what we'd now call a backpack nuke, though it's a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare US commercial design for blasting wells]]) to destroy a shipment of lethal psychotropic nerve gas on a crashed aircraft (the cylinders have cracked and the gas has filled the plane, so they can't just be removed). Unfortunately the timing device is smashed when Quiller parachutes in so he's ordered to detonate the device by hand (local military helicopters are in the area doing a sweep search, so there's no time to parachute in another device). [[spoiler:Fortunately Quiller is able to field-improvise a means of pushing down The Button, involving wedging the bomb under the thrust levers in the cockpit, then capturing a rather startled vulture who, when it's finished flapping around in outrage, settles down on the most suitable perch. In the [[Series/{{Quiller}} television adaptation]], he uses a desert mouse that chews its way into a cardboard box holding food, and a string attached to the bomb trigger.]]

* ''The Tango Briefing'' (1973) by Adam Hall. British spy Literature/{{Quiller}} must use a small nuclear weapon (what we'd now call a backpack nuke, though it's a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare US commercial design for blasting wells]]) to destroy a shipment of lethal psychotropic nerve gas on a crashed aircraft (the cylinders have cracked and the gas has filled the plane, so they can't just be removed). Unfortunately the timing device is smashed when Quiller parachutes in so he's ordered to detonate the device by hand (local military helicopters are in the area doing a sweep search, so there's no time to parachute in another device). [[spoiler:Fortunately Quiller is able to field-improvise a means of pushing down The Button, involving wedging the bomb under the thrust levers in the cockpit, then capturing a rather startled vulture who, when it's finished flapping around in outrage, settles down on the most suitable perch...]]