North Carolina Nearly Nuked by Accident in 1961
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on June 13th, 2014 11:08 pm by HL
North Carolina Nearly Nuked by Accident in 1961
On a January night in 1961, a U.S. Air Force bomber broke in half while flying over eastern North Carolina. From the belly of the B-52 fell two bombs — two nuclear bombs that hit the ground near the city of Goldsboro. A disaster worse than the devastation wrought in Hiroshima and Nagasaki could have befallen the United States that night. But it didn’t, thanks to a series of fortunate missteps. Declassified documents that the National Security Archive released this week offered new details about the incident. The blaring headline read: “Multi-Megaton Bomb Was Virtually ‘Armed’ When It Crashed to Earth.”