(CNN) -- On a January night in 1961, a U.S. Air Force bomber broke in half while flying over eastern North Carolina. From the belly of the B-52 fell two bombs -- two nuclear bombs that hit the ground near the city of Goldsboro. A disaster worse than the devastation wrought in Hiroshima and Nagasaki could have befallen the United States that night. But it didn't, thanks to a series of fortunate missteps. Declassified documents that the National Security Archive released this week offered new details about the incident. The blaring headline read: "Multi-Megaton Bomb Was Virtually 'Armed' When It Crashed to Earth."
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Goldsboro one of 32 pre-1980 accidents involving nukes
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Weeks after Goldsboro, there was another close call in California
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The weapons came alarmingly close to detonation
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They were far more powerful than the bombs dropped in Japan
The @placeholder was flying over North Carolina on January 24, 1961, when it suffered a "failure of the right wing," the report said.
The B-52 was flying over @placeholder on January 24, 1961, when it suffered a "failure of the right wing," the report said.