Historical Happenings: The night a B-52 bomber crashed in Davidson County
On a March evening in 1961 in Denton, eight-year-old Tommy Morris was watching television in the back room of the family home, when a huge explosion rattled the entire house.
Running to his mother in the living room, he asked her what it was, but like many other people in the area she had no idea that a giant military airplane had just crashed on a farm near Silver Mine and Floyd Church roads.
“I remember the boom shook the whole house,” said Morris. “No one knew what had happened, but the next day I remember my dad telling us it was a plane crash. It seems like we rode over there to look, but you couldn’t get to it anymore.”
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On March 30, 1961 a Boeing B-52 Stratocruiser bomber carrying eight crew members from Dow Air Force Base in Maine were participating in a training exercise and was attempting a mid-air refueling when “something” happened causing the enormous plane to explode and then crash into a field off Silver Hill Road, south of Denton.
In an interview in 2003, First Lt. Glen C. Farnham, one of the two survivors of the crash, told the Greensboro News and Record that the “bomber started going down about half a mile before meeting up with the refueling plane. At 15,000 feet, the pilot yelled for the crew to bail out”. Farnham said he must have ejected at 14,000 feet, and then the sky "lit up" above him.
Farnham and Major Wilbur F. Minnich were the only survivors of the crash. Neither knew the other had survived before being reunited at Griffis Clinic in Denton for treatment, according to news reports at the time.
Only four bodies of the remaining crew members were ever recovered. Afterward, rescue workers described recovering one body dangling from a parachute in a tree; another body was found nearly two miles from the wreckage, but only consisted of a “head and shoulders”. Other body parts were strewn throughout the area, making identification of victims difficult.
Undeployed ejector seats were discovered in the plane wreckage leading to the conclusion that the two crew members never made it out of the plane and perished in the crash.
Witnesses described to local newspapers that the plane crash rattled houses and blew out windows in Denton and others said the flash from the explosion could be seen as far away as Winston-Salem.
Measuring at a length of 160 feet with a 185-foot wingspan the B-52 bomber was, and still is, the largest air bombers ever built in the United States.
The crater from the crash was measured to be over 30 feet deep, 150 feet long and was gouged out of solid rock. Reports said the wreckage was scattered over a ten-mile area, setting fires in the woods and fields.
“I thought Judgement Day had come,” said John Frank, the owner of the farm where the plane crashed to a local newspaper at the time.
Not knowing initially what kind of aircraft it was, hundreds of locals descended on the scene hampering initial rescue efforts. Eventually, it was roped off but not before many people picked up “souvenirs” from the event, some which are still on display at the Denton Farm Park.
The March 1961 B-52 plane crash in Denton came approximately 60 days after a similar incident in Goldsboro. On Jan. 24, the same style of B-52 bomber exploded midair causing two nuclear bombs to fall free from the bomb bay.
Three of the crew of eight were killed in the January crash.
It was later reported that one of the two bombs was very close to exploding, saying five of the six steps required for a thermonuclear detonation did occur. Only the aircraft commander’s arming switch had not been activated.
The other bomb successfully deployed its parachute system, and it touched down essentially undamaged. It was quickly recovered by an explosive ordnance team and hauled away.
Because of this recent incident, and the political climate in the country at the time, many people in Denton were concerned the B-52 that had crashed was also carrying nuclear weapons. Representatives with the Air Force emphatically stated there was “positively no nuclear weapons on board”.
Now nearing age 70, Morris said he still remembers the night of the crash saying people still call it the “Denton Bomb” because that is exactly what it felt like had happened.
“I will never forget it,” said Morris. “It was a really big deal around here for a long time. I’m sure there are a lot of people who still have pieces of the plane wreck sitting in their living room right now.”
This article originally appeared on The Dispatch: Historical Happenings: The night a B-52 bomber crashed in Davidson County
