5 Times the United States Almost Nuked Itself

The threat of the US getting nuked was high during the Cold War with Russia. But the closest it got to nuclear destruction may have been at its own hand…

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The threat of a nuclear explosion in the United States was at its height between World War 2 and the Cold War with Russia. But what if the closest America actually ever came to nuclear destruction was at its own hand?

This compilation of five accidents is the result of military airplane crashes, dangerous science experiments, pilot error and a simple dropped wrench. The crash of a B-52 bomber over Goldsboro, North Carolina saw the release of an atomic bomb over American soil, as did the Mars Bluff incident involving a nuclear-armed B-47 bomber. Both lost nuclear weapons were recovered from those broken arrow incidents, but the same can’t be said for the 1958 accident involving a collision between a B-47 and F-86 fighter jet. That nuclear bomb was lost forever off the coast of Georgia.

Other incidents include the plutonium Demon Core experiments that resulted in chain reactions which killed several nuclear scientists at the Los Alamos National Lab, and the Van Buren ICBM accident in which a nuclear warhead was ejected from a massive missile explosion.

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