16. Two nuclear bombs were (briefly) lost in a snowstorm in Maryland
On January 13, 1964, a USAF B-52D bomber on airborne alert duty en route from Westover Air Force Base near Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts to its home base of Turner Air Force Base in Albany, Georgia, encountered a harsh winter storm and extreme turbulence. Requesting permission to increase altitude to evade incoming dangerous turbulence at 29,500, the aircraft proceeded to climb to 33,00 feet. During this ascent the bomber encountered historic turbulence with such ferocity to cause structural failure in the military aircraft.
Of the five crew members aboard the B-52 only the pilot and co-pilot survived the crash, with the radar navigator failing to eject and dying upon impact whilst the gunner and navigator ejected but succumbed to exposure after successfully reaching the frozen ground. The aircraft crashed approximately 17 miles southwest of Cumberland, Maryland in an isolated mountainous and wooded area with wreckage scattered across a site roughly 100 square yards. As the bombs were in the tactical ferry configuration – meaning no mechanical or electrical connections had been made to the bomber, and the safing switches were in the “safe” position – neither bomb could detonate or explode. A subsequent recovery operation in the extreme weather was conducted, ultimately retrieving the intact devices from the aircraft’s wreckage which had been buried by over 14 inches of new snow.