Seventy Punished for Nuclear Flight

[unhappycamper]

Seventy Punished for Nuclear Flight
Associated Press | October 20, 2007
WASHINGTON - The Air Force said Friday it has punished 70 Airmen involved in the accidental, cross-country flight of a nuclear-armed B-52 bomber following an investigation that found widespread disregard for the rules on handling such munitions.

"There has been an erosion of adherence to weapons-handling standards at Minot Air Force Base and Barksdale Air Force Base," said Maj. Gen. Richard Newton, the Air Force deputy chief of staff for operations.

Newton was announcing the results of a six-week probe into the Aug. 29-30 incident in which the B-52 was inadvertently armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and flown from Minot in North Dakota to Barksdale in Louisiana without anyone noticing the mistake for more than a day.

The missiles were supposed to be taken to Louisiana, but the warheads were supposed to have been removed beforehand.

A main reason for the error was that crews had decided not to follow a complex schedule under which the status of the missiles is tracked while they are disarmed, loaded, moved and so on, one official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.

The Airmen replaced the schedule with their own "informal" system, he said, though he didn't say why they did that nor how long they had been doing it their own way.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,153761,00.html?wh=wh

[Aviation Pro]

1. How many of that unit are Christian evangelicals?

That would be interesting to know.

[RC]

2. You pickin' on gods chosen again?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. probably a damned good question.

Now, assuming that Cheney wants to start a firestorm somewhere, I wonder where would an excess nuke warhead do the most good? Given that they STILL have not fixed the leadership crap at the Air Force Academy, although they promised 4 yrs ago, and 3 yrs ago, and 2 yrs ago, and that there are still complaints that there is religious brainwashing taking place among cadets, it is a very fair question.

[NYVet]

4. What is the relevance of that information?

Would it be any different if they were Catholic, Jewish, Hindu, or Shinto?

[Aviation Pro]

5. See above "probably a pretty damn good question"

Incidentally, I know of no Catholic, Jewish, Hindu or Shinto adherents who are fervently praying for the end of the world. The only cult/sect that I know of who do that are Christian evangelicals of the Rapture ilk. Lots of service members who have been indoctrinated in that dogma come out of the Air Force academy.

[TahitiNut]

6. Dispensationalists. (A seriously whack-job lot.)

:shrug: It's less than 1/3rd of the "evangelical" protestants.

Such congregants meet most (if not all) the criteria for "personality cults."

http://www.theocracywatch.org/christian_zionism_dispensationalism.htm
http://www.theologicalstudies.org/dispen.html

[TahitiNut]

7. When leaders of the Dispensational Movement like Falwell equate the Rapture with Nuclear Holocaust .

... it has more than a tin-foil association. It's a reasonable question given the branch of service and the events.