It’s the 61st anniversary of the big bang that, fortunately, never happened.
Around midnight on January 24th, 1961, a B-52G aircraft based at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base experienced a fuel leak and broke up in midair over Wayne County.
Five crewmen were able to successfully eject or bail out of the aircraft, but three did not survive the crash.
Two Mark 39 nuclear bombs being carried on the bomber plummeted to the earth, landing with the wreckage in the farmlands of Faro, about 12 miles north of Goldsboro.
Declassified information eventually showed one of the bombs came very close to detonating with 3 of 4 arming mechanisms being tripped in the crash.
One of the bombs was recovered while portions of the second sank into a muddy field never to be seen again.
