The B-52 Crash We Almost Didn't Survive #history #military #shorts

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]In 1961, a hydrogen bomb 260 times more powerful than Hiroshima almost exploded over the United States because three safety systems failed.

[00:00:10]It was a routine mission. A B-52 Stratofortress carrying two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs, a fuel leak developed.

[00:00:18]By midnight, the right wing was flooding. The crew tried everything.

[00:00:22]Nothing worked. The pilots ordered a bailout. Three crew members did not survive. The bomber broke apart at 10,000 ft. Both bombs fell toward the farmland below. The first deployed its parachute and landed intact in a tree.

[00:00:36]The second [music] plummeted straight down and drove itself 50 ft into soft Carolina mud.

[00:00:42]When investigators examined the second bomb, they found that three of the four safety switches had triggered during the fall.

[00:00:50]The bomb had gone through almost every step of its arming [music] sequence. One switch remained, a single low-voltage switch the size of a coin. The only thing that stood between North Carolina and 3.8 megatons of nuclear [music] fire. The report was classified for over 50 years. The nuclear core of the second bomb was never fully recovered.

[00:01:12]>> [music] >> It remains in the ground in a North Carolina field to this day.

[00:01:17]Follow for more strange but true events that actually happened.