We’d like to buy your field. Why? Uhh, special no reason...

"I don't know which is worse: losing a nuclear weapon, or that it happens so often there's a term for it."

“a plane having technical difficulties” hm interesting “on board were two nuclear bombs” holy shit

The real hero of this story is the nuclear weapon’s parachute

Alternative title: That time the US almost accidentally blew itself up

This is one hell of an “oopsie daisy.”

Imagine owning a piece of land that the government were willing to pay any amount for

Realtor sometime in the future: "This delightful plot of land just became available for purchase, it's at a bombasticly low price, its been owned by the US government since the 1960's..."

All I got from this video is “United States of America starts the most dangerous treasure hunt.”

Plane with two nukes on board, literally falling apart: "Let's head towards populated land, that's the safest option."

"Oh what's that stuck up in the tree over there?" " " Oh that, it's just a giant nuclear bomb hanging up there, no biggie."

USAF: oops, lost my nuke again. Civilians: *sweating* Again?

It’s mind blowing to think about how many different times the world was almost destroyed, and how we’ll never know about majority of them.

"They were saved, in the end, by incredible good fortune, by luck, and by an ordinary, uncomplicated, low-voltage switch." I mean, I'd argue they were *also* saved by numerous redundancy systems to prevent just such a thing. Hats off to the engineers who went "three switches are not enough, add a fourth." Without them, the luck wouldn't have been enough. I might have gone with eight switches, myself, but that call to over-switch the hell out of it saved a lot of lives.

ah yes, mid air disintegration, my favorite technical difficulty

Crazy... If it wasn't for the low voltage switch, I wouldn't exist. My mom hadn't been born yet, but my dad was 2 years old.... He only lived two hours west of Goldsboro

The nuke dangling from the tree just a few feet from the ground sounds absolutely terrifying. Almost like something from a looney toon.

You've made dozens of videos about horrific disasters, but it's this almost-disaster that I find most terrifying.

I’ve lived in Goldsboro for 10 years and I’m just now learning about this! It’s still a very hushed story, especially since no one I know has heard of this story.

I firmly believe the person who wrote that report making the pop culture reference and masking the seriousness of it with dark humor was me in a previous life.

the anxiety that nuclear weapons give me is unmatched

imagine a timeline where these bombs did detonate, it'd be a big part of our history books, and having a state be abandoned as a no mans land is quite a thought.

I remember reading somewhere, and I'm paraphrasing here "That switch is the reason there isn't a bay where North Carolina is today"

It is my understanding, as a past EOD (explosive ordnance disposal) technician, that no atomic or nuclear device is allowed to be armed when carried in flight, or otherwise transported, over U S territory leaving the worst possible scenario to be decontamination clean up. The only exception has been when test dropping during which arming is only allowed at the time of the drop.

I would love to see you talk about the Byford Dolphin diving bell accident at some point.

And I thought I’d had a bad day at the office when I broke the pencil sharpener. Geezus.

TIL the US actually almost nuked itself..... Holy shit imagine how drastically this would have changed the entire world.

4:00 From there onwards I will refer to nuclear weapons as Landscape Reconfiguration Devices.

I hate how we just bury our problems in the ground like they won't come back one way or another.

Fascinating Horror: Here's how the US nearly destroyed itself with a series of small but deadly mistakes. Me: **hehe i live there**

The fact that a US plane flying over their own national soil carrying two bombs this insanely destructive was a "routine operation" in 1961 (as was the subsequent cover-up) is, to me, the most horrifying part of this story...? 😱

The nuke: *falling* The parachute: “STOP RIGHT THERE PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR.”

Hopefully that low voltage switch received the Medal of Honor, posthumously , of course.

How come nobody is talking about this dude's name is SEYMOUR JOHNSON. Somebody go arrest his parents

As I remember hearing it when I was in the Air Force, one of the Goldsboro bombs has sustained damage that brought two components within the arming mechanism to within a quarter inch of contact, which would begin the firing sequence.

The bomb dangling sounds exactly like adventure time

Holy crap, thank you for this. I used to work for a TV station in Raleigh, and we did a report on this a few years back on its anniversary. It's shocking how few people in Goldsboro never knew that a bomb was literally dropped on their town.

Dad: Son,go dig some worms for fishing. Son: hey dad look at the size of these worms and they glow!!!!

Having recently discovered this channel I've watched some fascinating videos. This is probably the scariest one yet, it makes you wonder why exactly the US airforce felt it necessary to carry live nuclear bombs, particularly on such a dodgy airframe.

03:58 "For several minutes, a bomb powerful enough to _reconfigure_ the east coast of America drifted slowly earthwards." I love your eloquence in the face of a severe nuclear disaster 😂😘

It's extremely difficult for a nuclear bomb to explode unintentionally, as it only has one specific way to detonate but this was certainly a close call.

imagine being a bomb disposal expert dispatched to a nuclear bomb site

“Not great, it’s on ‘arm’” what a chilling sentence

This sounds like a good start to an alternate history novel.

I wonder if they’d have blamed this on foreign threats or if they’d have owned up to it had it detonated.

Holy, 'a bomb powerful enough to reconfigure the East coast of America, drifted slowly earthwards' - let that sink in.

I remember the 1961 Yuba City, CA nuclear air crash when it happened. The following is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article on this incident: "On 14 March 1961 an aircraft accident occurred near Yuba City, California. A United States Air Force B-52F-70-BW Stratofortress bomber, AF Serial No. 57-0166, c/n 464155, carrying two nuclear weapons departed from Mather Air Force Base near Sacramento. According to the official Air Force report, the aircraft experienced an uncontrolled decompression that required it to descend to 10,000 feet (3,000 m) in order to lower the cabin altitude.Increased fuel consumption caused by having to fly at lower altitude, combined with the inability to rendezvous with a tanker in time caused the aircraft to run out of fuel. The aircrew ejected safely, and then the unmanned aircraft crashed 15 miles (24 km) west of Yuba City,[1] tearing the nuclear weapons from the aircraft on impact. However, in a 2012 book LTC Earl McGill, a retired SAC B-52 pilot, claims that the aircrew, after an inflight refueling session that provided inadequate fuel, refused the offer of an additional, unscheduled inflight refueling, bypassed possible emergency landing fields and ran out of fuel.[2] The crew ejected, the aircraft broke up and four onboard nuclear weapons were released. The weapons' multiple safety interlocks prevented both a nuclear explosion and release of radioactive material. LTC McGill, based on his SAC experience, blames the aircrew failures on the use of dexedrine to overcome tiredness on the 24-hour flight preceding the accident. The weapons did not detonate as their safety devices worked properly.[3] A fireman was killed and several others injured in a road accident while en route to the accident scene.[1]" All we knew at the time was that an Air Force plane had crashed. It was many years later we found out it was nuclear in nature. To this day it seems very strange to me that this plane, considering what was happening to it at the time, did not immediately land at Beale AFB, which is just a couple of miles outside of Yuba City and had more than adequate runway space to accommodate this plane as well as being a Strategic Air Command base as was Mather at that time, instead choosing to attempt to return to Mather about 40 or so more miles to the South.

This is one of those stories that makes me let out panicked little laughs because you know you should be relieved but you're shitting bricks all the same.

Wow I always assumed, (or hoped) that it was rather difficult to accidentally detonate a nuclear bomb

Fascinating Horror: 1st off, love your channel AND your narration. Would you ever consider doing a video on the 1956 disappearance of a B25 bomber in the icy Monongahela River, 4 of the flight crew survived, 2 died but they have never found the plane or what it was carrying, *despite* knowing EXACTLY where it crashed in only 20 feet of water, *OR* a video on the deadly Donora fog of 1948. I've really never seen either of these covered. This Pittsburgh yinzer thanks you for considering n'at.😉

It would be interesting to see a video about the National Harbor MGM accident where a little girl touched a railing that had been accidentally pumped full of electricity. It could be interesting to know exactly what happened and why it could have been avoided.

Been knowing about this for over 40years. My dad told me about it when I was young.

My then 1-year old mother lived about 15 minutes from where this happened. She never even knew until I saw a documentary on it a few years back and told her. I lived in nearby Rocky Mount myself until I was 13. Not likely that either of us would be here if it had worked out differently.

I can't state enough how amused I am by the fact that they made reference to strangelove in this scenario

"Low hanging fruit" will never be the same again.

I live an hour west of Goldsboro, near Raleigh. My family owns a farm near Goldsboro in Bullhead, North Carolina. It's amazing my family didn't get wiped out and I am here to tell this story today. If either bomb had detonated, I would not exist today.

This is one of the most famous 'broken arrow' incidents just because of the failure of the SAFF (Safing, Arming, Fuzing, and Firing), but my favourite is the Mars Bluffs one were they accidently dropped a bomb on South Carolina. The reason why it's my favourite is because of the interview in the film Nuclear 911 of the lovely southern gent whose house it fell on he's so understated and low key considering all 3 of his kids himself and his wife were injured in the incident and his house virtually flattened.

So two bombs suddenly arm themselves and everybody thinks it is normal?

Of all the videos and articles I've seen on this incident, this is the first one I've seen that covers the cause of the crash, and the fate of the crew members. Excellent video 👌

Just wanted to comment on your excellent writing style and varied storytelling abilities. Not to mention your effective narration inflection. I've noticed channels similar to yours suffer from repetitive and formulaic writing structures that quickly become a point of frustration, as well as very contrived and laboured narration in an attempt to sound simultaneously ominous, yet professional. Your work pulls it all together beautifully. Keep up the awesome content!

Good job on finding these obscure incidents. Maybe these could be interesting topics for a future video, some of these incidents are so messed up and also not much known: - Transvaal Park Disaster - Aeroflot flight 6502 (Crashed after the pilots intentionally put the blinds on the cockpit window as a bet) - Fire and Sinking of the M/V Doña Paz - Six Flags Haunted Castle fire : (Worst amusement park disaster in the United States) - Bocaue Floating Pagoda tragedy: (this is extremely chaotic, unfolding in so many disasterous stages; from a stray firecracker, onboard fire, stampede, pagoda sinking, pagoda collapse, electecution and generator explosion, killing 250+ people) - The windscale radiation fire: (U.Ks worst radiation disaster) - 2018 Table rock lake duck boat accident

It’s crazy how much I’ve learned off KZfaq alone than I have in school 🤔 .

Don't sure what is more terrifying... Double lawndarting Carolina with Mk.39 24mgt H-Bomb, or the fact that is how often Broken Arrow happened with a same type of "vessel" and same type of payload. Some people in USAF call that mixture of B-52 and Mk.39 - cursed.

I really love that he keeps sponsors at the end. Amazing video, man.

I like what John Oliver said about that: Did you know that we once almost nuked one of the Carolinas? Good thing we have two of them!

Congratulations on your first sponsor!! You’re a very underrated channel, I’m glad you’re getting a bit more of the attention you deserve.

I live in Goldsboro, about 20 minutes from the wreck site. My great grandfather was a volunteer firefighter who responded before the USAF from Seymour showed up. The actual town is called Faro(Fay-ro).

DANG! That was incredible episode! I'm a subscriber and I love your documentaries! A lot of times they're sad but they are the unblinking vision of our past! GOOD JOB GUYS! You got my stamp!

Have you ever thought about turning this into a podcast? I'd love to listen while at work!

Omg- that intro music is back... I love that little tune... hum to myself all day sometimes 😄

My mother lived 12 miles from the site this happened and said they never knew about it until ten years later. She was absolutely shocked and says she felt blessed it didn’t end up worse.

1:48 *sees the title and laughs nervously because I live near there but also because I was born on that day*

even planes get shaky and leaky when they get old apparently

why have you stopped playing the music during the video, its what makes the videos more chilling.

Something about the music in the background of your videos...it gets stuck in my head and plays on repeat all day after I watch one of your videos. Love them

I enjoy all these stories, I wish they could be longer, or in a compilation

If that had happened today, there is no way that would have been kept secret like it did back then. I am completely speechless on the fact that I never even knew about this incident. I served in the Air Force as security police and worked along side others who were enlisted much longer than me and had been all over. Aircraft security was a big part of our job and lots of stories were told. Never was this story mentioned. I found this shockingly interesting for sure.

I paved several of the roads in that area about 20 years ago and heard first hand accounts of that story. It was amazing hearing that story from people that actually saw it as it happened.

This is the first time I’ve been genuinely interested in a KZfaqr’s sponsor! Very interesting and something I’m going to check out!

I only discovered your channel today, thank you I found this interesting

Can you look into the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino fire? It occurred on Friday, November 21, 1980 in Las Vegas, NV, where 87 people died. There was also another hotel fire a few months later.

obsessed with these videos.

Fascinating breakdown. Love your videos

I live 40 minutes from Goldsboro and this is the first I’ve ever heard of this. Wow.

"Seymore Johnson" I'm sorry, did Bart Simpson name that?

man, ive been binge watching this channel when possible for three days and i have to say you’ve done an amazing job on each video. go ahead and get that sponsor, legend. thank you so much for your work and dedication to the videos.

That tree deserves the Congressional Medal of Honor. Respect.

A lot of the FH videos leave me with my mouth hanging open but this one is a true "WHAT THE ACTUAL F***?!" How have I never heard of this? These videos are fantastic. Thank you, FH!

The title of this video undersells the content. What a story.

Snap... i almost wasn't born. My grandma was living in Goldsboro at that time. My pops came into existence 5 years after this event.

I live in Goldsboro, retired from Seymour Johnson AFB. Definitely a fascinating story.

Hoooly shit. I need a cigarette after this one and I dont even smoke. My anxiety is through the roof about those bombs. Lol

Also "oddly relaxing even when learning about darker subjects" aptly describes your channel

An excellent video! I'm going to check out the Great Course! Fyi been to Thule a few times!

This legit terrifies me. My mother was born not too long before this happened, just a city away. If things had gone a little differently, I wouldn't exist.

I’d like to suggest “black Sunday” at Kings Island in Mason, Ohio for a future video

You do a good job finding less reported on disasters/events! I’m always impressed to hear stories I haven’t before.

I got as far as five minutes in and was yelling incoherently by 5:09. By 6:00, the incoherent hollering had redoubled. It's a bloody miracle we ever survived the 1960s.

Great vid FH, wow that was a close call. RIP to the men who lost their lives.

MAN when you go "I kinda just want another Fascinating Horror video" and then you get one on your birthday!!! Thank you for the pleasant coincidence!!!