Albuquerque’s 1950 Bomber Crash

Piece together the story of Albuquerque's 1950 Broken Arrow disaster from the wreckage of a Superfortress Bomber crash.

On April 11, 1950, a B-29 aircraft departed Kirtland AFB at 9:38 p.m. and approximately three minutes later crashed into Manzano Mountain, killing the 13-member crew. The aircraft was carrying a Mark IV atomic weapon from Albuquerque's Kirtland Air Force Base to the crew's home station in Roswell, New Mexico. The incident marked the second nuclear-weapons related accident in the U.S. military, first accident in the continental U.S., and the second of five that occurred during the calendar year of 1950.