In the early hours of the 24th of January 1961 a B-52 military aircraft was in the middle of a routine operation when it encountered severe technical difficulties, and began to break apart in mid-air. The captain ordered everyone on board to bail out, and they did so, leaving the disintegrating aircraft unmanned, shuddering violently as it plummeted towards farmland near Goldsboro, North Carolina. On board were two nuclear weapons, each one 250 times more powerful than the bomb which destroyed Hiroshima.