14 DAY TRIAL // Operating under the Freedom of Information Act, investigative journalist Eric Schlosser obtained a 1969 document that confirms that, in 1961, the US Air Force nearly detonated by accident two nuclear bombs over Goldsboro, North Carolina.
Schlosser tells The Guardian that the two nukes would have been 260 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, had they exploded.
The carrier broke up mid-air and launched the two bombs, one of which acted exactly like a wartime nuke: “its parachute opened, its trigger mechanisms engaged, and only one low-voltage switch prevented untold carnage,” The Guardian writes.
Had both bombs exploded, the lethal fallout could have deposited over Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City, resulting in millions of casualties.
The declassified document confirms that American authorities lied to citizens about the possibility of having one such device detonate by chance.
“The US government has consistently tried to withhold information from the American people in order to prevent questions being asked about our nuclear weapons policy,” Schlosser says.
“We were told there was no possibility of these weapons accidentally detonating, yet here's one that very nearly did,” he adds.