Cuba on the nuclear edge

Yes. During a tense naval standoff, U.S. destroyers dropped depth charges near a Soviet submarine carrying a nuclear torpedo, and two officers voted to fire it, believing war had already started. A third officer, Vasily Arkhipov, refused, and his veto is widely credited with averting a nuclear exchange.

Yes. U.S. Air Force pilot Rudolf Anderson was shot down over Cuba while flying a reconnaissance mission, becoming the only combat death of the standoff. His loss pushed both governments closer to war, since several of Kennedy's advisers believed it demanded an immediate military response.

Kennedy's advisers weren't confident airstrikes could destroy every missile before some launched, and any attack risked killing Soviet personnel and forcing immediate retaliation. A naval blockade let Kennedy stop new weapons from arriving while leaving room to negotiate instead of triggering war outright.

The US argued the two situations weren't truly equivalent, though the Soviets clearly disagreed and cited the American missiles as their own reason for placing weapons in Cuba. The comparison mattered enough that quietly removing the Turkish missiles became part of the deal that ended the crisis.