The 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash was an accident that occurred in Goldsboro,
North Carolina, on January 24, 1961. A B-52 Stratofortress carrying two Mark 39
nuclear bombs broke up in mid-air, dropping its nuclear payload in the
process. The pilot in command ordered the crew to eject at 9,000 feet. 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, was based at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in
Goldsboro. Around midnight on January 23–24, 1961, the bomber had a rendezvous
with a tanker for aerial refueling. During the hook-up, the tanker crew
advised the B-52 aircraft commander, Major Walter Scott Tulloch, that his
aircraft had a fuel 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 37,000 pounds 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 10,000 feet on
its approach to the airfield, the pilots were no longer able to keep the aircraft
in trim and lost control of it. The pilot in command ordered the crew to
eject, which they did at 9,000 feet. 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.
Although the crew last saw the aircraft intact with its payload of two Mark 39
nuclear bombs on board it broke apart before impact releasing the bombs. The
wreckage of the aircraft covered a 2-square-mile area of tobacco and cotton
farmland at Faro, about 12 miles north of Goldsboro.
The two 3-4 megaton MK. 39 nuclear bombs separated from the gyrating aircraft as
it broke up between 1,000 and 2,000 feet. 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 100-foot-diameter 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,
although 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 700 miles per hour and disintegrated without detonation of its
conventional explosives. The tail was discovered about 20 feet below ground.
Pieces of the bomb were recovered. 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
and plutonium, was left in place, but the "pit" or core of the bomb had been
dislodged and was removed . The United States Army Corps of Engineers purchased
a 400 feet circular easement over the buried component. The University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill determined the buried depth of the secondary
component to be 180 feet, plus or minus 10 feet.
Consequences to B-52 design Wet wings 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 in 1966, and the B-52 Stability
Augmentation and Flight Control program 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 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 a historical road marker in the town of Eureka, 3 miles
north of the crash site, commemorating the crash under the title "Nuclear
Mishap." The memorial does not list the names of the three aircrew who died in
the accident: Sergeant Francis Roger Barnish, Major Eugene Holcombe Richards,
and Major Eugene Shelton. Nothing on the sign indicates that one
of the two nuclear bombs released by the B-52 during the crash is still buried
where it came to rest in 1961, nor does it state that one of the two bombs was
in the armed position. This accident was one of the many that contributed to
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel's actions calling for "top-to-bottom"
changes in a press release at the Pentagon on November 13, 2014.
Further reading Hansen, Chuck. US Nuclear Weapons: The
Secret History. Aerofax, Incorporated. ISBN 0517567407.
Dobson, Joel. The Goldsboro Broken Arrow. Lulu Press. ISBN 1257869523.
See also List of military nuclear accidents
Special Weapons Emergency Separation System
United States military nuclear incident terminology – Broken Arrow
1964 Savage Mountain B-52 crash Notes
Footnotes References
Hanauer, Gary. "The Pentagon's Broken Arrows". Mother Jones Magazine: 28.
Retrieved 13 July 2009. Hansen, Chuck. "Ooops!". Bulletin of
Atomic Scientists 46. Hardy, Scott. "The Broken Arrow of
Camelot: An Analysis of the 1961 B-52 Crash and Loss of the Nuclear Weapon in
Faro, North Carolina". East Carolina University.
Knaack, Marcelle Size. Post-World War II Bombers, 1945–1973. Washington, D.C.:
Office of Air Force History. ISBN 978-0-16-002260-9. Retrieved September
25, 2013. Mattocks, Adam. "Personal Interview".
Pilkington, Ed. "US nearly detonated atomic bomb over North Carolina – secret
document". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 September 2013.
Schneider, Barry. "Big Bangs from Little Bombs". Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
Retrieved 13 July 2009. Sedgwick, Jessica. "Bombs Over
Goldsboro". This Month in North Carolina History. Retrieved 24 January 2012.
Sharon, Keith. "When two nukes crashed, he got the call". Orange County
Register. Retrieved 21 September 2013. Shaffer, Josh. "Shaffer: In Eureka,
They've Found a Way to Mark 'Nuclear Mishap.'". News and Observer. Retrieved
2 July 2012. Tuttle, Steve. "A CLOSE CALL- Hero of
'The Goldsboro Broken Arrow' speaks at ECU". East Carolina University.
Retrieved 21 September 2013. Yancy, N.. "Life-Death Story of Flight
Told". Greensboro News & Record. Yenne, Bill. B-52 Stratofortress: The
Complete History of the World's Longest Serving and Best Known Bomber. Zenith
Imprint. ISBN 1610586727. External links
CSPAN Video book Goldsboro Brokenarrow The Guardian Newspaper - Account of
hydrogen bomb near-disaster over North Carolina – declassified document.
BBC News Article - US plane in 1961 'nuclear bomb near-miss'
The Night Hydrogen Bombs Fell over North Carolina
Simulation illustrating the fallout and blast radius had the bomb actually
exploded