During the 1950s and 60s, the United States suffered a string of mishaps with nuclear weapons.
But a couple of them were close shaves.
The Goldsboro incident is one of them.
Only five managed to successfully parachute out.
Three crew members died in the crash.
Photo:Kelly Michals/Flickr
On board the B-52 bomber were two 3.8 megaton Mark 39 thermonuclear weapons.
As the pilot-less airplane fell, it broke-up midair and the two hydrogen bombs separated from their bays.
But later sources revealed that explosion was a real concern.
These thermonuclear devices were 250 times more powerful than the one that destroyed Hiroshima.
Thousands of people would have died instantly.
Millions more would have been affected by nuclear fallout.
But some authors dispute this claim.
Under these circumstances, the possibility of a detonation wasnext to none.
The lost piece contained asignificant amountof high-enriched uranium.
But we also have to give a lot of credit to just plain old dumb luck.
