There's a Nuclear Weapon Buried Somewhere And We Can't Find It

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Thoughty2 (Arran) is a British YouTuber and gatekeeper of useless facts. Thoughty2 creates mind-blowing factual videos about science, tech, history, opinion and just about everything else.
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Writing: Steven Rix
Editing: Jack Stevens

[Thestargazer]

I lived about 5 miles from this location. I was about 5 years old when it happened on 24 January 1961. A book titled The Goldsboro Broken Arrow by Joel Dobson is an excellent account of the "incident". The relief pilot who jumped out of one hatch only to be thrown out the roof hatch was the last survivor of the crash. He nearly parachuted back into the burning crash. He was one of the first black B-52 pilots. A family drove him back to Seymore-Johnson AFB and stopped them at the gate, not knowing about the crash, and tried to arrest the pilot for "stealing a parachute".

[robertwilloughby]

"There's a nuke buried in the ocean off southern Spain" would be a great follow up! The Palomares Incident is another "Broken Arrow" moment, and a very scary one, too!

[herehere]

Airman whats our fuel!?
About 22 elephants sir!
Outstanding airmanship!

[bertram-raven]

Little Timmy: "Grandma, what's that glowing thing in the fireplace?"
Grandma: "I found it in a field. It keeps the house nice and warm."

[Rily]

As a native to NC, this has always fascinated and terrified the hell out of me. My grandad used to tell me about the military crashing a bomber out in Goldsboro. This video hits extra special. Cheers Thoughty2!

[bushkangarutha]

"22 hefty African bull elephants of fuel" you know, for the Americans that will measure in anything but the metric system

[whippet]

A friend and myself helped and elderly man install gutters on his patio roof about 20+ years ago. After we finished, he thanked us and talked for awhile. He began to tell about his life and work. He was in the Airforce and told us this amazing story. We asked him how he heard about this incident. He told us he was a member of the crew and was one of the survivors.

[akizeta]

I understood that the _second_ bomb, the one that didn't deploy the chute, was the one where they found that three of the four fail-safes had, um, failed.

There's a quote from the officer in charge of the _Broken Arrow_ team that recovered the bombs: "Until my death I will never forget hearing my sergeant say, 'Lieutenant, we found the arm/safe switch.' And I said, 'Great.' He said, 'Not great. It's on arm.'"

[nickchristman]

I lived my whole life living in Goldsboro and just moved to Raleigh, I find it a little strange how especially for it being an all Air Force town and the vast history; in school we never spent anytime learning about this aside from just hearing about it back in middle school.

[ConfesstoChrist]

This episode is filled with “Dropping loads”, burying tips in the ground”, and “exploding in holes”

[patrickmerritt]

That is a tiny refueling plane pumping in the wrong direction, no wonder they had issues lol.

[spyroXcynder]

Fun Fact: The US has accidentally dropped, crashed, or lost nukes on its own soil a total of 5 times (outside of testing of course). Including this one, a couple of them have never been found and are near residential areas

[sarj]

Michael H. Maggelet and James C. Oskins, authors of Broken Arrow: The Declassified History of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Accidents, disputed the claim that a bomb was only one step away from detonation, citing a declassified report. They point out that the arm-ready switch was in the safe position, the high-voltage battery was not activated (which would preclude the charging of the firing circuit and neutron generator necessary for detonation), and the rotary safing switch was destroyed, preventing energisation of the X-Unit (which controlled the firing capacitors). The tritium reservoir used for fusion boosting was also full and had not been injected into the weapon primary. This would have resulted in a significantly reduced primary yield and would not have ignited the weapon's fusion secondary stage.

[jeffperry]

Animation of the B52 refueling drove me nuts!! The plane that refuels the other plane is in front of and higher then the one receiving the full.. So the B52 would have been below and in back, and the refueling would be higher and in front. My OCD kicked in big time..

[markrainford]

I found cutting out granola and blueberries completely, and replacing them with a 'full English' made me extremely happy.

[jimbeckert]

The refueling plane flies ahead of the plane being refueled. LOL.

[RB-bdtz]

3:02 I imagine the person doing the animating did some internet research and found an image of a B-52 receiving fuel from a fighter-sized tanker, while being positioned above and in front of the tanker ...

[MadZprod]

I didn't realise you did podcasts, I was on a 5 hour round trip 3 days in a row and searched " random facts " and your podcasts came up, I listened to every one of them, ranging from Blood is valuable to eggs and history. Brilliant 👏.
All the dad jokes made it so funny.

[jamesa]

I used to be an emergency fuel mechanic at Msp Airport. It's amazing how much temperatures and the fuel contract and expand on warm days vs. cool days . Fun job working in the controlled chaos

[jays_jae]

US Citizens: YOU LOST WHAT???!!

US Government: Oops :3