Air Force Punishes 70 in Nuclear Weapons Error

[Contrary1]

"Error"? :eyes:

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- 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..."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NUCLEAR_MISTAKE?SITE=OKPON&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[bridgit]

1. yeah, heard today the AF was going to try to "minimize" the chance it'll happen again...

:wtf:

[steve2470]

2. anyone ?

Anyone with military/nukes/relevant experience want to speculate on what happened ? The magnitude of this is very scary.

[tkmorris]

3. This was no "accident"

Believe me, you CAN'T move 6 nuclear weapons by accident. There are far too many hoops to jump through, checklists that must be filled in, documentation up the wazoo. You don't just wander into the bunker and load em up. The whole system is designed to prevent a nuke from EVER getting lost or stolen, for obvious reasons.

The whole thing puzzles me. It could never have happened when I was in unless someone with the authority to do so ordered it to happen. We are talking serious brass here. So I am left with 1) Things have broken down so far in the last decade that all of the standard protocols for handling such materials are ignored/changed, or 2) Someone ordered these weapons to be on that plane, for God only knows what reason.

Based on what I have heard, I have to go with number 2. Military personnel are somewhat demoralized, but they still take way too much pride in what they do for number 1 to have happened.

So who ordered this? And why? I can't even speculate. There is just not enough info.

[steve2470]

4. another news story

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nuke20oct20,1,2808037.story?coll=la-headlines-nation


By Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 20, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Air Force weapons officers assigned to secure nuclear warheads failed on five occasions to examine a bundle of cruise missiles headed to a B-52 bomber in North Dakota, leading the plane's crew to unknowingly fly six nuclear-armed missiles across the country.

That August flight, the first known incident in which the military lost track of its nuclear weapons since the dawn of the atomic age, lasted nearly three hours, until the bomber landed at Barksdale Air Force Base in northern Louisiana.

But according to an Air Force investigation presented to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Friday, the nuclear weapons sat on a plane on the runway at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota for nearly 24 hours without ground crews noticing the warheads had been moved out of a secured shelter.

"This was an unacceptable mistake," said Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne at a Pentagon news conference. "We would really like to ensure it never happens again."
<edited for copyright>

[RC]

5. Define "unacceptable mistake"

But according to an Air Force investigation presented to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Friday, the nuclear weapons sat on a plane on the runway at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota for nearly 24 hours without ground crews noticing the warheads had been moved out of a secured shelter.

"This was an unacceptable mistake," said Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne at a Pentagon news conference. "We would really like to ensure it never happens again."
<edited for copyright>


Loading the nuclear war heads under the wings or leaving the plane where they could be seen was the mistake? Which?