Dr. Jones or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Flew my Drone Over a Hydrogen Bomb

The United States has had its share of close calls with our nuclear arsenal. Most know about the 1958 mid-air Air Force collision that left a 1.7 megaton bomb just off the coast of Savannah. Not much is known of its exact location or if the device contained any plutonium at the time of the incident but the fact the Georgia Department of Natural Resources still performs occasional radiation checks in Wassaw Sound around Tybee Island should give you indication of the governments level of concern. 

 In 1961 the Air Force had another aircraft mishap, this time involving a B-52 carrying two 4 megaton bombs. The payload jettisoned after the aircraft malfunctioned and the crew ejected before the Stratofortress collided with the ground near Goldsboro, NC. One of the bombs landed intact after its parachute deployed the other, however, smashed into an open field, embedding itself 180 feet into the soil. During recovery efforts, Air Force personnel reported only the safe/arm switch prevented detonation. Somehow between the aircraft malfunction and its midair break-up, the bombs completed their program arming sequence. Those details were confirmed in information released in recently declassified documents from the result of a Freedom of Information Act request. Confirming a single switch prevented detonation. 

Jack ReVelle, Air Force munitions expert and primary person responsible for the recovery of both hydrogen bombs was quoted as saying “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.

Excavation of the second bomb was eventually abandoned because of uncontrollable ground-water flooding. Most of the thermonuclear stage containing uranium and plutonium was left in place, but the core of the bomb which is needed to trigger a nuclear explosion was removed. The United States Army Corps of Engineers purchased a 400-foot diameter circular easement over the buried component and there it lays to this day.