4 ms·

If they never found the bomb, how did they determine what safety mechanisms did and did not fail?

• lolcraft 13y ago
  With the other bomb. And the fact that it didn't explode.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• fhars 13y ago
  According to wikipedia, they found most of the second bomb: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldsboro,_North_Carolina#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldsboro,_North_Carolina#Histo...
• saltyPeter 13y ago
  US was narrowly spared a disaster of monumental proportions when two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over Goldsboro, North Carolina on 23 January 1961 The plane was carrying 2 of those bad boys. But it sounds like the whereabouts of both may have actually been determined. The bombs fell to earth after a B-52 bomber broke up in mid-air, and one of the devices behaved precisely as a nuclear weapon was designed to behave in warfare: its parachute opened, its trigger mechanisms engaged, and only one low-voltage switch prevented untold carnage. As it went into a tailspin, the hydrogen bombs it was carrying became separated. One fell into a field near Faro, North Carolina, its parachute draped in the branches of a tree; the other plummeted into a meadow off Big Daddy's Road.