1961 Goldsboro B - 52 crash The 1961 Goldsboro B - 52 crash was an accident that occurred near Goldsboro , North Carolina , on 24 January 1961 . A B - 52 Stratofortress carrying two Mark 39 nuclear bombs broke up in mid - air , dropping its nuclear payload in the process . The captain ordered the crew to eject , which they did at . Five men successfully ejected or bailed out of the aircraft and landed safely . Another ejected but did not survive the landing , and two died in the crash . Controversy continues to surround the event as information newly declassified in 2013 reinforced long - held , public suspicions that one of the bombs came very close to detonating . Accident . The aircraft , a B - 52G based at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro , was on a 24 - hour " Operation Coverall " airborne alert mission on the Atlantic seaboard of the United States . The operation was part of a larger Cold War program called the first Single Integrated Operational Plan ( SIOP ) . This early plan called for one third of the Strategic Air Command ' s fleet of nuclear bombers to be airborne at any point in time , so that in the event of war , the fleet would not be caught on the ground , and be able to fly directly to targets in the Soviet Union , China and Soviet - aligned states . Around midnight on 23 – 24 January 1961 , the bomber rendezvoused with a tanker for mid - air refueling . During the hook - up , the tanker crew advised the B - 52 aircraft commander , Major W . S . Tulloch , that his aircraft had a leak in the right wing . The refueling was aborted , and ground control was notified of the problem . The aircraft was directed to assume a holding pattern off the coast until the majority of fuel was consumed . However , when the B - 52 reached its assigned position , the pilot reported that the leak had worsened and that of fuel had been lost in three minutes . The aircraft was immediately directed to return and land at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base . As it descended through on its approach to the airfield , the pilots were no longer able to keep the aircraft in trim and lost control of it . The captain ordered the crew to eject , which they did at . Five men ejected and landed safely . Another ejected but did not survive the landing , and two died in the crash . The third pilot of the bomber , Lt . Adam Mattocks , is the only man known to have successfully bailed out of the top hatch of a B - 52 without an ejection seat . The crew last saw the aircraft intact with its payload of two Mark 39 nuclear bombs on board . The wreckage of the aircraft covered a area of tobacco and cotton farmland at Faro , about north of Goldsboro . The two 2 - 2 . 5 megaton MK . 39 nuclear bombs separated from the gyrating aircraft as it broke up between . Three of the four arming mechanisms on one of the bombs activated , causing it to execute many of the steps needed to arm itself , such as charging the firing capacitors and , critically , deployment of a retard parachute . The parachute allowed that bomb to hit the ground with little damage . Bomb recovery . The bomb that descended by parachute was found intact , and standing upright as a result of its parachute being caught in a tree . According to Lt . Jack Revelle , the bomb disposal expert responsible for disarming the device , the arm / safe switch was still in the safe position , though it had completed the rest of the arming sequence . The Pentagon claimed at the time that there was no chance of an explosion and that two arming mechanisms had not activated . A United States Department of Defense spokesperson told United Press International reporter Donald May that the bomb was unarmed and could not explode . Former military analyst Daniel Ellsberg has claimed to have seen highly classified documents indicating that its safe / arm switch was the only one of the six arming devices on the bomb that prevented detonation . In 2013 , information released as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request confirmed a single switch prevented detonation . The second bomb plunged into a muddy field at around and disintegrated without detonation of its conventional explosives . The tail was discovered about below ground . Parts of the bomb were recovered , including its tritium bottle and the plutonium . According to nuclear weapons historian Chuck Hansen , the bomb was partially armed when it left the aircraft though an unclosed high - voltage switch had prevented it from fully arming . In 2013 , ReVelle recalled the moment the second bomb ' s switch was found . “ Until my death I will never forget hearing my sergeant say , ' Lieutenant , we found the arm / safe switch . ' And I said , ' Great . ' He said , ' Not great . It ’ s on arm . ' ” Excavation of the second bomb was abandoned as a result of uncontrollable ground - water flooding . Most of the thermonuclear stage , containing uranium , was left " in situ " . The Army Corps of Engineers purchased a circular easement over the buried component . The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill determined the buried depth of the secondary component to be , plus or minus . Immediate aftermath . Wet wing s with integral fuel tanks considerably increased the fuel capacity of B - 52G and H models , but were found to be experiencing 60 % more stress during flight than did the wings of older models . Wings and other areas susceptible to fatigue were modified by 1964 under Boeing engineering change proposal ECP 1050 . This was followed by a fuselage skin and longeron replacement ( ECP 1185 ) in 1966 , and the " B - 52 Stability Augmentation and Flight Control program " ( ECP 1195 ) in 1967 . Later analysis of weapons recovery . ReVelle , speaking to a writer in 2011 of the bomb that he said nearly detonated : “ As far as I ’ m concerned we came damn close to having a Bay of North Carolina . The nuclear explosion would have completely changed the Eastern seaboard if it had gone off . ” He also said the size of each bomb was more than 250 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb , and large enough to have a 100 % kill zone of seventeen miles . Each bomb would exceed the yield of all munitions ( outside of testing ) ever detonated in the history of the world by TNT , gunpowder , conventional bombs , and the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts combined . In 2013 , investigative journalist Eric Schlosser published a book , " Command and Control " , in which he presented a declassified 1969 document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act . In the report , entitled " Goldsboro Revisited , " written by Parker F . Jones , a supervisor of nuclear safety at Sandia National Laboratories , Jones says that " one simple , dynamo - technology , low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe , " and concludes that " The MK 39 Mod 2 bomb did not possess adequate safety for the airborne alert role in the B - 52 . " Legacy . In July 2012 , the state of North Carolina erected an historical road marker in the town of Eureka , north of the crash site , commemorating the crash under the title " Nuclear Mishap . " The memorial lists the names of the three aircrew who died in the accident : Sergeant Francis Roger Barnish ( 35 ) , Major Eugene Holcombe Richards ( 42 ) , and Major Eugene Shelton ( 41 ) .