A.J. and I drove to Goldsboro, N.C. last Thursday to visit a baseball academy. The night before our trip, I noticed a FaceBook post by local history author Heather Leah about how 65 years ago in this area a B52 broke apart dropping two nuclear bombs! Thank God that wires failed to connect so they didn’t detonate but pieces of one bomb are buried deep in the ground in an agriculture field. The academy folks said to visit the area around Pikeville and Eureka so we drove around awhile looking for the place then found the historical marker and went into the B52 Grill to learn more about the site as well as get some ice cream. It’s a few miles away on Big Daddy Road in a tobacco field where the government planted trees to prevent people digging into the site.
Here are the official accounts from news articles and declassified reports:
According to AtomicArchive.com: “Date: January 24, 1961, Location: Goldsboro, North Carolina, During a B-52 airborne alert mission, structural failure of the right wing resulted in two weapons separating from the aircraft during aircraft breakup at 2,000-10,000 feet altitude. One bomb parachute deployed and the weapon received little impact damage. The other bomb fell free and broke apart upon impact. No explosion occurred. Five of the eight crew members survived. A portion of one weapon, containing uranium, could not be recovered despite excavation in the waterlogged farmland to a depth of 50 feet. The Air Force subsequently purchased an easement requiring permission for anyone to dig there. There is no detectable radiation and no hazard in the area.”
The BBC in 2022 reported, “As it happens, having so many safety features is highly necessary – mostly because they don't always work. In one case in 1961, a B-52 broke up while flying over Goldsboro, North Carolina, dropping two nuclear weapons to the ground. One was relatively undamaged after its parachute deployed successfully, but a later examination revealed that three out of four safeguards had failed.”
In a TOP SECRET DECLASSIFIED report the then-US Secretary of Defense summed up the incident as a case where "by the slightest margin of chance, literally the failure of two wires to cross, a nuclear explosion was averted.”
“The other nuclear bomb fell free to the ground, where it broke apart and ended up embedded in a field. Most parts were recovered, but one part containing uranium remains stuck under more than 50ft (15m) of mud. The US Air Force purchased the land around it to deter people from digging.”
“Since 1950, there have been 32 nuclear weapon accidents, known as "Broken Arrows." A Broken Arrow is defined as an unexpected event involving nuclear weapons that result in the accidental launching, firing, detonating, theft, or loss of the weapon. To date, six nuclear weapons have been lost and never recovered.”