The United States almost faced a nuclear catastrophe worse than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In fact, according to a report by CNN, the accident could have been 190 times worse.This past week, the National Security Archive released details about this incident from the declassified documents. The headline was titled, “Multi-Megaton Bomb Was Virtually ‘Armed’ When It Crashed To Earth.”

A U.S. Air Force bomber broke in half on a January night in 1961. As it flew over eastern North Carolina, two nuclear bombs fell from the B-52 and hit ground near the city of Goldsboro. According to the report, the B-52 endured a “failure of the right wing.” The bombs fell from the sky, one of the bomb’s parachutes opened while the other did not. Luckily, the disastrous consequences that could have arisen were avoided due to a few, specific circumstances.

The bomb whose parachute opened, weapon 1, landed completely intact. The safing pins that provided power from a generator to the weapon was yanked which kept it from going off. Meanwhile, the other bomb, weapon 2, landed in free fall and the crash impact put it in the “armed” setting. Thankfully, that damaged a part of the bomb necessary to evoke a detonation.

This incident first became known when the book “Command and Control” by Eric Schlosser was released last year. Nevertheless, the extensive details were only released this past week with the documents of the incident. Of the 8 crew members on the plane 5 survived.

If the bombs had detonated, the extent of destruction would be difficult to even calculate. The public can simulate nuclear explosions on the site nuclearsecrecy.com. According to this website, the bomb size of only one of the two that fell in 1961 would emit thermal radiation over a 15-mile radius, which may have varied depending on wind conditions. The website estimates that over 60 thousand people would be killed and over 54 thousand would be injured, this is with consideration of the area’s current population size.

The population size of North Carolina in 1961 is 47% of what it is now. With that in mind, the death toll would be 28 thousand and 26 thousand injured. These numbers do not acknowledge the fatalities and injuries caused by the incident’s fallout.

Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense, described the event saying, “By the slightest margin of chance, literally the failure of two wires to cross, a nuclear explosion was averted.”

The Defense Department has disclosed 32 accidents involving nuclear weapons between 1950 and 1980. Between 1950 and 1968 there are at least 21 declassified accounts of aircraft incidents in which nuclear weapons were lost. The weapons in such incidents were accidentally dropped, jettisoned for safety reasons, or on board crashed planes. An additional five plane accidents happened whilst planes were parked or taxiing.