The United States Air Force almost detonated an atomic bomb over North Carolina in 1961, according to FOX News. The bomb would have been 260 times more powerful than the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, according to a report published on Friday.
The report was published in the Guardian after being declassified. It was obtained by Eric Schlosser under the Freedom of Information Act. In the report from 1969, there are details about a crash near Goldsboro, North Carolina that occurred on January 23, 1961.
The crash resulted in two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs breaking up in mid-air. The bombs reacted as nuclear weapons are designed to function in wartime. A single low-voltage switch prevented detonation.
Had the bombs exploded, the fallout would have covered Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City, according to the report.
"One simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe," Parker Jones, a senior engineer in the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, wrote.
The bombs "did not possess adequate safety for the airborne alert role in the B-52" Jones wrote, analyzing a book on the crash that was written by Ralph Lapp, a physicist, about the crash. Jones continued, saying the detonation "would have been bad news - in spades."
Three out of eight crewmembers died in the crash. North Carolina placed a historic marker in the town of Eureka with the words "nuclear mishap," according to the Raleigh News and Observer. The marker was placed there in July 2012.
Schlosser obtained the declassified document while he was conducting research for an upcoming book he is working on about the nuclear arms race, which will be titled "Command and Control."
"The U.S. government has consistently tried to withhold information from the American people in order to prevent questions being asked about our nuclear weapons policy," Schlosser told the Guardian. "We were told there was no possibility of these weapons accidentally detonating, yet here's one that very nearly did."
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