USAF Almost Nuked North Carolina In 1961 – Declassified Document

Freshly Exhumed sends in a story about how close the United States came to accidentally attacking itself with nuclear weapons just a few days after John F. Kennedy took office. "A secret document, published in declassified form for the first time by the Guardian today, reveals that the U.S. Air Force came dramatically close to detonating an atom bomb over North Carolina that would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that devastated Hiroshima. The document, obtained by the investigative journalist Eric Schlosser under the Freedom of Information Act, gives the first conclusive evidence that the US was narrowly spared a disaster of monumental proportions when two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over Goldsboro, North Carolina on 23 January 1961. The bombs fell to earth after a B-52 bomber broke up in mid-air, and one of the devices behaved precisely as a nuclear weapon was designed to behave in warfare: its parachute opened, its trigger mechanisms engaged, and only one low-voltage switch prevented untold carnage."

Comments

old, really old, news

[turkeydance]

the triple fail-safe worked.

Re:old, really old, news

[timeOday]

No, the amazing thing is that the triple fail-safe failed! It was only the 4th and final failsafe that did not fail!

Jones found that of the four safety mechanisms in the Faro bomb, designed to prevent unintended detonation, three failed to operate properly. When the bomb hit the ground, a firing signal was sent to the nuclear core of the device, and it was only that final, highly vulnerable switch that averted calamity.

Egads.

If you had the choice between a repeat of this, vs. a certain 9/11-scale attack tomorrow, which would you choose?

Here's what's new

[gman003]

The accident has been known about for some time (I first read about it while researching a story I was writing - the protagonist had to build a nuclear bomb, so I was looking for lost and unrecovered nuclear material).

We have also had reports that one of the bombs was nearly armed. These were officially denied by the military, but it was confirmed by several military members.

The new development is that the documentation saying "yeah, that bomb nearly went off" has been declassified. Basically the same deal as the Area 51 thing a while back - everyone knew, but now everyone is "allowed" to know.

Re:If the bomb did explode, would USA blame USSR?

[Hognoxious]

A fault with the warning system rather than bombs per se, but it makes you think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Saved_the_World

Re:A little drastic but...

[unitron]

I was 9 when this happened also, living about 3 counties Southeast of the crash site, certainly close enough to have seen a very bright light and heard a very loud noise if anything went off.

The B-52 in question was trying for an emergency landing at Seymour Johnson AFB, where my Dad did his active duty Reserve obligation every summer back then

Chances are if one of them had gone off it wouldn't have been over Wayne County but "in" it, as in buried in the dirt.

The one with the parachute wound up with about a foot and half of the nose underground but the other one, falling unimpeded, hit a field near a swampy area, and despite digging down over 40 feet, they still haven't recovered all of it.

Most of the stuff in this latest release was already known, though.

http://www.newsargus.com/news/archives/2011/01/23/the_bomb_one_click_from_armageddon/

http://www.ibiblio.org/bomb/story.html

http://www.restorationsystems.com/uncategorized/whoops-atomic-bomb-dropped-in-goldsboro-nc-swamp-neuse-huc-02/