destructive potential almost 10 times that of the Hiroshima bomb,

[seemslikeadream]

The Guardian knows how to tell a story!



http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2163007,00.html


Shakeup after nuclear missiles flown across US by mistake


Simon Jeffery in Washington
Thursday September 6, 2007
The Guardian


As many as six nuclear warheads, each with a destructive potential almost 10 times that of the Hiroshima bomb, were mistakenly flown across the US, Pentagon officials conceded yesterday.
The incident last week saw nuclear-armed cruise missiles last week mounted on the wings of a B-52 bomber and flown from an airbase 40 miles below the Canadian border to the southern state of Louisiana. The 1,500 mile journey from the Minot airbase in North Dakota to Barksdale in Louisiana lasted three and a half hours, during which time the crew were unaware of their nuclear load.


Pentagon officials said a munitions squadron commander had been relieved of his duties and crews involved with the mistaken load - including ground crew workers - have been temporarily "decertified" from handling munitions.
The director of air and space operations at US air combat command is to lead an investigation into how the plane was able to mistakenly fly nuclear weapons without anybody realising.

The cruise missiles were being transferred to Louisiana for decommissioning, as part of a programme to retire 400 of them. Three air force officers who spoke to the Military Times newspaper said the nuclear warheads should have been removed before the missiles were loaded under the bomber's wings. It is unclear why they were not. The W80-1 warheads have an explosive yield of 150 kilotons. The Hiroshima bomb is calculated to have had an explosive yield of 16 kilotons.

[MadMaddie]

1. I don't get it...why wouldn't they remove the warheads before

they flew them over US cities....?

[AZBlue]

2. Unaware of their nuclear load??? Is that even possible?

I'm no pilot and not a vet, but does someone even know if that's possible??

[Corgigal]

4. Shouldn't be possible

but the month of Sept is the military favorite month to say..OH. my bad.

[lonestarnot]

8. Hell no.

[blues90]

3. we need to really go out and get shitfaced sometime

[tnlefty]

6. Hey, hey, kinda makes one wonder doesn't it?

I'm sure Chertoff will investigate right away, then cover up anything that they find, but we're all safe now! :sarcasm:

[blues90]

10. I have to wonder since this was a week ago

How could they not know and call this a mistake , then they say it will take several weeks to find out , they know exactly what happened and they know it right now . They always feed this crap out about looking into things when they are only looking for a way to either make it go away or a way to make is seem normal procedure .

[pinto]

5. True, it seems. Downright stupid blunder, yet I heard today that the

warheads weren't fissionable, even in the event of a crash. The real risk would have been local contamination if the warheads were ruptured in an accident, I guess.

These thing are transported around the country at times, but I'm not sure via what means. Rail? Trucks? Planes?

It's be interesting to see what the routine 'safety' standards are.

:shrug:

[spag68]

7. Have you heard of Murphys Law?

[bananas]

9. some info on transportation here...

http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2007/09/flying_nuclear_bombs_1.php
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/w80.htm