Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia, my name is Jody Avrogan.

This is one of our most requested episodes that we're about to do. I'm really glad we're getting to it, but here is the incident.

Overnight on January 23rd, 1961 in Eastern North Carolina, a U.S. Air Force bomber broke in half midair. The crew of eight were ordered

to abandon the aircraft. Five of them would survive this incident. The plane broke up, came

crashing down in a fairly populous area near Goldsboro, North Carolina.

Now what was aboard that aircraft that broke in half and came crashing down over eastern North Carolina?

Two MK39 Thermonuclear bombs.

These hydrogen bombs were being transported by the airplane and of course they too came

crashing to the ground as well.

While being transported, the nuclear weapons were unarmed, but the investigation in the

wake of this crash revealed that as they came crashing to the ground, the bombs had gone through

several steps of the arming process, and one of them in particular was basically

one signal away from detonation.

So let's talk about the time in 1961

that the US nearly nuclear bomb itself over North Carolina.

Here to do that, as always, are Nicole Hammer of Columbia and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wesley.

Hello there.

I have to calm myself down from the anxiety attack I'm having just from the description of this.

It's quite remarkable.

Hello Jody.

Hey there.

Hello.

...