Nuclear Bombs Fell on North Carolina 64 Years Ago. How Disaster Was Narrowly Averted
The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash. | By Simone Jasper
Published January 24, 2025 at 3:22pm ET
Two nuclear bombs fell from the sky 64 years ago, putting North Carolina one step from disaster.
A military plane was carrying the weapons when it exploded over a rural area, killing three people and sending the bombs plunging toward the ground Jan. 24, 1961. The “safety interlocks on the weapons failed, having gone through all of the steps to detonate, save one,” state historians said.
Here’s what we know on the anniversary of the incident, remembered as “one of the closest near-disasters” of the Cold War.
How ‘nuclear blast’ was averted in NC
Billy Reeves told National Geographic he was a teenager when he saw a plane with a missing wing come down near his farm house.
“Everything around here was on fire,” Reeves told the magazine in 2021. “The grass was burning. Big Daddy’s Road over there was melting. My mother was praying. She thought it was the End of Times.”
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/01/24/nuclear-bombs-fell-north-carolina-64-years-ago-how-disaster-was-narrowly-averted.html
