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Air Force Mistakenly Transports Live Nukes Across America
kernel panic attack writes "Surely the late Stanley Kubrick is somewhere smiling at this one. Forbes.com has a story about a B-52 Bomber that mistakenly flew 6-nuclear tipped cruise missles across several states last week.
The 3-hour flight took the plane from Minot Air Force Base, N.D, to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on Aug. 30.
The incident was so serious that President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were quickly informed and Gates has asked for daily briefings on the Air Force probe, said Defense Department press secretary Geoff Morrell."
From the CNN story, "The crew was unaware that the plane was carrying nuclear weapons, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the extraordinary sensitivity and security surrounding the case."
Hard to take special safety measures when you're not even aware of what you're carrying.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
We are supposed to know where the weapons are at all times. They were not supposed to be transported. The Air Force was supposed to transport some conventional cruise missiles.
Actually, that is an interesting question. The warheads are not armed per se, that's true. But if they were properly loaded then the B52 would have controlled the arming, i.e. they would have gone live had they been fired. On the other hand, an "anonymous source" says that pilots didn't know the warheads were real. That is also a mystery because the only way the plane's systems would not know they had real warheads on the missiles is if the missiles were not properly connected into the plane's systems. I can also say that warheads destined for decommissioning are NOT transported mounted on missile boosters. They are very carefully packed in specialized shipping containers and transported on cargo planes (or special trucks or trains but usually cargo planes). In addition, the little bit of news we have isn't entirely clear if it was the warheads being decommissioned or the missile motors. I assume the warheads, so there are a lot of unanswered questions at this point.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Anything after 1980 is classified.
That's at least 11, and probably 12 missing atomic weapons, just from the US arsenal.
Then there's a handful of them that aren't missing, but were either destroyed in an accident, the detonation failed, or were destructed in the air.
The recent incident pales in comparison.
We can tell U.S. Plutonium from Soviet Plutonium from Chinese Plutonium. Rather easily, I gather.
It's "have". Would have detonated. Would have been a radiation leak.
Nonsense. Safety analysis of multiple weapons in an accident scenario has been part and parcel of nuclear safety since nukes got small enough to put more than one on a delivery vehicle. I spent the first 8 years of my career at Los Alamos doing just that. What Tom Clancy novel did you get your assertion from?
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No matter where they flew them, this was a violation of nuclear handling procedures. I had to deal with these rules many years ago. This kind of screw up is a career ending move.
As much as people like to make fun of the military, there are some things the military does that it takes extremely seriously, and generally has a relatively excellent track record with. Handling nuclear weapons is one of them. Having nuclear weapons somewhere they are not supposed to be scares the military. They could fall into the wrong hands, they could cause an accident (bad publicity not needed), all kinds of issues. Then there are very stringent laws on handling nukes. Stuff you can go to jail for violating.
Maybe there was never any danger of a nuclear explosion, but there was a temporary loss of control of nuclear weapons. Someone caused (by accident, oversight, misinformation, etc.) nuclear weapons to be loaded on a plane and then flown somewhere they are not supposed to be. Each nuclear weapon has a location it is supposed to be in. They may change where from day to day, but by the will of the military they will be in that place. Nukes are not treated the same way as so many other comparatively unimportant items (like toilet seats).
So, whether the potential was there or not for some serious explosion (it was not), there is a very serious breach of handling which in the military will be treated seriously. Yeah, flying over US air space is a big no-no, but the bigger no-no was a temporary misplacement of nuclear weapons. That is huge in military terms.
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
Nice fear mongering but it's completely inaccurate. For starters the pilots would know what they are carrying and the days of 24/7 airborne nukes ended back in the 60s or 70s. It was too expensive, with too much room for error and quite redundant when we have a force of boomers that can't be detected/engaged/destroyed before launching.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Actually, it was the munitions squadron commander that was sacked. On any base there are several squadrons (Fighters, bombers, etc depending on the type of base) and then there are support squadrons such as logistics, supply, etc. It makes more sense as ultimately his squadron was the one responsible for getting the live nukes out for decommissioning and put them in the wrong place which resulted in them being loaded on the B52. Having said this, the crew that loaded the munitions on the B52 would be a part of the Bombardment squadron and this will be a huge black mark on the careers of all parties involved.
There is more to science than physics!
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