Slashdot Mirror
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."
Well, boys, I reckon this is it - nuclear combat toe to toe with the Roosskies. Now look, boys, I ain't much of a hand at makin' speeches, but I got a pretty fair idea that something doggone important is goin' on back there. And I got a fair idea the kinda personal emotions that some of you fellas may be thinkin'. Heck, I reckon you wouldn't even be human bein's if you didn't have some pretty strong personal feelin's about nuclear combat. I want you to remember one thing, the folks back home is a-countin' on you and by golly, we ain't about to let 'em down. I tell you something else, if this thing turns out to be half as important as I figure it just might be, I'd say that you're all in line for some important promotions and personal citations when this thing's over with. That goes for ever' last one of you regardless of your race, color or your creed. Now let's get this thing on the hump - we got some flyin' to do.
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. --Denis Diderot
Some news sources say five, some say six.
I know what you're thinking. 'Did they lose six warheads or only five?' Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. You've got to ask yourself a question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?"
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
So, how's that rigorous nuclear oversight working out for you?
Wrong branch of the service, but if Admiral Hyman Rickover were still alive he'd be shitting cinderblocks when he heard about this fiasco. I'm still not sure whether to laugh or cry.
Can't stop the Beta? Time to evacuate to ##altslashdot at webchat.freenode.net - Slashcott in effect.
is still waiting for their baggage to show up.
What?
We can drive the nukes across the country, we can throw them on a train, or we can fly them. Personally, I'm much happier knowing they are being flown places then being sent via ground. I don't care how many safe guards are in place to prevent the weapons going off accidentally, there is always the risk of a crash sending radioactive material all over the place (not an explosion, but a leak). At least in the air the material is safer from accidents (how many air-to-air collisions are there?), and a plane can always find the most depopulated areas to fly over. Trucks and trains don't have that option.
Or maybe that's just me.
Now, if that makes sense to anyone, could you please explain it to me? I think I've confused myself.
What is amazing is that the weapons made it all the way to Texas without Minot AFB missing them. Without going into details, I can say from experience that the US nuclear warheads are very closely tracked. Before this, I would have said it would be impossible for the base to lose track of them for even a few minutes, much less three and a half hours, and then have to be told by Barksdale that they were on the B52 when it arrived. The thing about the munitions crew being decertified until the investigation is finished is a miss direction. The airmen who load the planes don't make the decisions. And (unless things have changed significantly since I was in the USAF) they would not be able to get the warheads to load without a great deal of security and authorization. You don't just go and pick those things up when you want to. More likely, someone got plane ids or missile serial numbers mixed up on the wok orders. Anyway, it will be interesting to see what went wrong.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
I would hope we would have protocols in place that would ensure we never lose track of any nuclear weapon. If a nuclear weapon were detonated in a U.S. city how could we verify it wasn't our bomb if we can't keep track of where our weapons are?
The problem was, they didn't know the nukes were on board. It may or may not make sense to fly instead of drive them, but you have to agree that transporting nukes without knowing the nature of your cargo is a pretty dicey business.
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.
First of all you have to wonder how it is that the media gets such a story and second of all how they are allowed to tell it.
Doesn't this matter equate to national security, or is national security more a spam and IP issue?
Certainly Homeland security has to be in on this information????
But again, how is it that the media are even allowed to find out about such an insident?
Maybe the US government wanted them to media it, in order to commit more terrorism....
Now maybe someone will flamebait mod me down but seriously, how does the media find out about what
would otherwise be considered a typical US military plane flight? Did the plane accidently have a big "warheads on board" sign stuck on the side of it?
You don't think that a B-52 can take off with six nuclear missiles when it isn't supposed to is a big deal?
I'm confused as to the details here. It says the "missiles" were being decommissioned. Is that the missile itself or the warhead? If it's the missile, first off why the hell are we decommissioning cruise missiles, and second how did the pilots not notice the nuclear warheads on the missiles they were carrying when they did their preflight inspection? If it was the warheads, then it would seem like someone further up the chain is to blame and the crews were just following orders.
Actually, the B-52's have only been around since the early 50's ;-), and are currently scheduled to be front-line heavy/strategic bombers until 2040 -- so another 30+ years.
How exactly does one mistakenly mount nuclear weapons on a plain? Is it like the stack on the left is the fake ones, and the one on the right the real nukes? I was hoping that nuclear weapons are somewhat more securely stored.
Considering the logistical and safety related problems when transporting those weapons on the ground, could it be that they intentionally moved the weapons and now that the news got wind of the story call it a mistake?
Technically, 1955 would be cold war era. But, they are just a good reliable design. They haul stuff alright, like carpet bombs for the Afganistan mountains and later in Iraq with percision guided munitions among other things. These old workhorses still make great warhorses, with proper modification. The Airforce expects to keep them inservice to about 2040, the longest design lifespan for any plane ever. And as a taxpay, I for one (continue to) welcome our superbly designed BUFF overlords.
Demented But Determined.
Ex-CIA agent Larry Johnson has a different take on this incident:
t aging_nuke_for_iran
http://tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/sep/05/s
Sent from the iPad I found in your car.
Hate to break it to you but many of our top line fighters bombers and support craft where developed in the 50's 60's and 70's. KC-130, B-52, F-15, F117, F-16... all decades old technology.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
or........they dont go off, and someone "finds" them. If we can reverse engineer an iphone, you can bet your ass someone will be able to reverse engineer a software lock that was made by the lowest bidder....
-William
God is everything science has yet to explain.
Having worked on relevant software, I can confirm that just the unclassified side of arming a cruise missile warhead involves multiple steps, some of which only happen after launch. For example, the onboard computer waits for a characteristic maneuver to happen before it goes to the next step in the arming process.
"Live" is not the word I'd use, except maybe as opposed to "dummy". The scary issue, as pointed out elsewhere, is that the inventory tracking broke down.
Didn't you read the label?
ever here the saying "they just don't build things like they use to"?
Do you really wanna fly such warheads over the US in newer planes?
here is another saying "if its not broke then don't fix it."
A large load bomber does not have to be fast but steady and sure.
Another saying "Murphy loves complexity"
But here the real thing to consider. Now they we have told extremist groups that B52 Bomber may or not be caring warheads over the US, unguarded.......
Here's one take, take your own grain of SALT. Can't take it with the ABM Treaty since Bush withdrew from that in 2001.
http://tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/sep/05/s
So I called a old friend and retired B-52 pilot and asked him. What he told me offers one compelling case of circumstantial evidence. My buddy, let's call him Jack D. Ripper, reminded me that the only times you put weapons on a plane is when they are on alert or if you are tasked to move the weapons to a specific site.
Then he told me something I had not heard before.
Barksdale Air Force Base is being used as a jumping off point for Middle East operations. Gee, why would we want cruise missile nukes at Barksdale Air Force Base. Can't imagine we would need to use them in Iraq. Why would we want to preposition nuclear weapons at a base conducting Middle East operations?
His final point was to observe that someone on the inside obviously leaked the info that the planes were carrying nukes. A B-52 landing at Barksdale is a non-event. A B-52 landing with nukes. That is something else.
Now maybe there is an innocent explanation for this? I can't think of one. What is certain is that the pilots of this plane did not just make a last minute decision to strap on some nukes and take them for a joy ride. We need some tough questions and clear answers. What the hell is going on? Did someone at Barksdale try to indirectly warn the American people that the Bush Administration is staging nukes for Iran? I don't know, but it is a question worth asking. I dearly hope that's crazyhead speculation. But even if this is just an accident, this is fucking scary.
http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2007/09/flying_nuclea
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
The news outlets are using "armed" to refer to the B-52 being armed with nuclear weapons, not (so far as I've seen) in reference to the weapons themselves being armed. Though they're not all being as clear about that as they should be.
:)
Still, arming a nuke isn't always as hard as it's cracked up to be... remember all those all-zero launch codes we had during the cold war? Now that's a weak password.
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.
He's not claiming that it never happened before, just that it's never been reported before.
Is it shocking that the US Military accidentally forgot to remove live Warheads before the Cruise Missiles were moved? Yes.
... You can't just accidentally set them off. If the plane had crashed more than likely the weapons would have been destroyed in a fairly inert manor.
But there was so little chance of accident detonation that it is a far smaller story than one might immediately think.
Modern Nuclear Weapons are one of those things you have to really WANT to detonate
Plus considering even the military didn't know they were moving Nuclear Weapons, the chances of someone attempting to steal them is next to nill.
Professionals treat any gun like it's loaded, always.
Suppose a records keeping error might be the first step in an elaborate plot to steal not one but six nuclear warheads.
Suppose a few months after they went missing, five of them blew up in major cities.
New York.
Washington D.C.
Chicago.
Los Angeles.
San Francisco.
Suppose one were held back to make you wonder if it was going off in your home town tomorrow.
Yeah, so it seems like a minor bookeeping error, compounded by accidental transport. However, the error also implies that they were transported by a crew that didn't know they had nukes on board, landing at a base that wasn't prepared to handle the nukes securely, since they didn't know they were receiving nukes.
It's not a minor thing. It's a big, big story. It's a bigger story than will ever be admitted.
Suppose this wasn't the first time this happened, only the missing nukes were not detected because they were removed from the cruise missiles before the receiving crew noticed they had warheads. This terrifying scenario is why a full inventory is being conducted right now.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
'B-52' was the aircraft designation for the bomber that coincidentally had its maiden flight on April 15, 1952 (the YB-52). The designation was assigned to the design in 1948.
The little guy just ain't getting it, is he?
They didn't even know these five warheads (not armed, and not able to be armed) were off the base in Minot until someone in Louisiana noticed that they were "hot" shots.
To lose track of one warhead - much less FIVE - is a very serious transgression.
Didnt Sideshow Bob do this once? Perhpas the crew flew cross country to eradicate television. My oh my cartoons have a lot to answer for.
WWII = 1939-1945
:)
The first Boeing B-52 Stratofortress flight took place on April 15, 1952, almost 7 years after the end of WWII. This was a test flight of a prototype, not a production plane; the B-52 was . The B-52 has been modified, updated, and adapted to meet the changing needs for a large, long-range, high-level bomber. It was initially designed as an intercontinental nuclear strategic bomber, and has since been adapted for low-level flight, conventional bombing, launching cruise missiles, tactical attack, direct- and indirect-fire ground support, photographic reconnaissance, etc.
The airframes are indeed aging (the last B-52H airframe was completed in 1962), but it boils down to efficient use of resources and adaptation of existing equipment. It's such a superb aircraft that any possible improvements to be had with an all-new design would be so small as to make it not worth the expense of said new design. There is no finer long-range, fast-subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber aircraft on the planet right now, nor is there likely to be in the near future.
There are other examples of military equipment that hasn't undergone a significant redesign in a long time due to lack of need. The current M4 Carbine that is issued to infantrymen in the Army and Marine Corps is simply a slight evolution of a design from 1956 - the AR-15, adopted by the US Air Force in 1961, re-designated as the M16 in 1962, and type classified Standard A in 1965, meaning it became the individual weapon of choice for US military personnel. The M1911 pistol was the standard sidearm of the US military for 74 years, from 1911 to 1985. The M60 general-purpose light machine gun has been around since 1957, and was largely based on a WWII German design, the MG42.
In short, just because something's been around for a while doesn't mean it's no longer useful
"Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
http://www.portaec.net/library/peace/1950_bomber_c rash_in_bc.html
TERRACE, B.C. (CP) -- A determined group of local citizens wants some answers about the mysterious crash near here almost five decades ago of a B-36 bomber carrying an inactive atomic bomb. The gigantic bomber -- 50 metres long with a 70-metre wingspan -- was apparently flying without a crew when it plowed into Mount Kolaget in the vast Coast Mountains range on Feb. 13, 1950.
It was carrying an inactive Mark IV Fat Man atomic bomb similar to one dropped on Nagasaki when it got into trouble over Hecate Strait, according to a U.S. military declassified report. Three engines were ablaze and the giant aircraft was losing altitude. Crew members dropped the bomb over the strait and bailed out.
Sure it matters. Most of the American nuclear weapons are thermo-nuclear and optimized for size and efficiency. Meaning, the primary is just big enough to light the secondary. And while you can harvest the plutonium even if you can't unlock the PAL code, it's doubtful you could get a Hiroshima sized weapon out of it...because if you had that kind of technical capacity, you wouldn't be resorting to stealing bombs in the first place.
Oh please, they were just 6 nukes. My grandma handles more dangerous payloads everyday. Stop whining. Plus, traveling over the fly-over states the pilot probably wouldn't have noticed if he dropped any. Less cows, maybe. Only gripe I have with those fellas is they didn't mistakenly head up north and have an accident, ridding us of the friggin canadians once and for all. We'll never have an opportunity like this again. This could've been the answer to Celine Dion.
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.
"I know there's one country in the world that doesn't have some horrible weapon of mass destruction, they don't have some horrible weapons lab in the mountains... Jamaica. They would never make an atomic bomb. They may make an atomic bong. But I'd rather fight a war with an atomic bong. Cuz when the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation and radiation. When the atomic bong goes off there's celebration!" -- Robin Williams
Circumcision is child abuse.
Or maybe just those Godless blue states.
Central Command: Blue Bird C451, this is central, do you copy.
C541: Copy, over.
Central Command: We have good news and bad news for you, over.
C541: Ready to reciev orders, over.
Central Command: Good news is you're going to be famous. Now your payload..
C541: Yes Sir.
Central Command: Can you verify your current payload?
C541: Kidney beans and tomatoes sir, over.
[Muffled laughter, static]
Central Command: Actually, those are nuclear warheads on your left wing, lieutenant.
C541: Spicy kidney beans? Over.
"We have a Broken Arrow"
"A what?"
"A Broken Arrow. It's when we lose a nuclear weapon."
"I don't know what's scarier, the fact that we lost nukes or the fact that it happens often enough that we have a name for it"
Moderators: WOOOOOOOOSH! That's the sound of sarcasm being accidentally flown over your head.
Come on mods... this was clearly tongue in cheek. Except the part about Celine Dion, of course. Nuclear annihilation just isn't enough in some cases.
You can't win, Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
I feel tinfoil even suggesting it, but...
This sounds an awful lot like the kind of "accident" that happens on purpose. Russia has just recently resumed strategic bomber flights - am I the only one that thinks that this may just have been a particularly ham-handed attempt by someone at the pentagon to remind the Russians that, hey, we have bombers with nukes too.
We were supposed to be transporting formerly-nuclear-tipped cruise missiles that had had the warheads removed.
It's a big deal for two reasons:
- We're obligated by international treaty to not fly nuclear weapons.
- Anytime nuclear weapons are someplace they're not supposed to be it's a problem. If no one knew these things were not where they were supposed to be, they could have just as well been, well, anywhere.
Not to mention, the crew of the plane didn't know they had a nuclear payload. That means that if they had some sort of issue with the flight, they are in the position where they're not making the right decisions.
paintball
Yes, and two bombs were dropped on actual people. Your incidents pale in comparison to them.
The fact that there have been bigger stories doesn't negate the fact that this is a story as well, and not a very good story either. Losing track of nukes for over three hours is completely unacceptable.
I can has sig?
He was downmodded because the need to nuke Celine Dion is most certainly not a laughing matter.
Previous answers :
1) We are more RESPONSIBLE about nukes than others!(RTFA)
2) We don't share the knowledge with others(We honestly don't know where israel got those! Seriously! And okay that dictator in pakistan both has WMDs and is profilerating them, but hey... their chief scientist said "ok sorry!"... and plus they are our allies, you know? different rules so the said dictator gets away scott free for something we killed saddam for.)
3) We will never use them! They are too *dangerous* to be *ever* used! (Okay so we dropped a couple on Japanese civilians including women and infants, and we are the only country in history to ever use them ... but hey it was *us* ... that is different!)
A nuclear weapon without its pit is not a threat to anyone. The pit is the fissionable plutonium sphere that is imploded to produce a nuclear detonation. In early U.S. nuclear weapons, the pit was stored separately from the rest of the bomb. To arm the bomb, the weapons officer opened the bomb casing and inserted the pit. This was usually done in flight, to reduce the danger of an accident during take-off. Since it took hours to reach the target, the crew had plenty of time to perform the procedure.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
....the Iranian army today is still trying to figure out why three dummy missiles were dropped on Tehran....
I'm not 100% sure these codes couldn't be cracked.
How many people had the opportunity to try?
How old is the technology behind it?
I'm sure the money used to develop a working DRM is comparable to the money used to develop those locks.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
I think we ought to add ASCII art to the axis of evil
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
Bauer saves the america by manually defusing falling nuclear warheads in mid-air, without a parachute.
Read radical news here
So which SqlServer bug will be blamed for this coup attemp^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hbureaucratic foulup?
And I was not even allowed to check in toothpaste.
Mounting Nukes (armed or not) to a planes wing - as they *say* it happend - is a mistake. However, this whole thing could just be some 'sword-rattling' (as we call it in Germany) towards we-own-the-northpole Russia, we're-building-nukes Iran or both. Maybe it's just as someone here said: Someone leaked that somebody is rearanging the US nukes and they molded a PR stunt out of it. "OMFG, if someone would've dropped them, OMFG they are so dangerous, our (and this is an actual quote) potential enemies need to know that we can handle our nukes professionally."
I smell lot's of proactive appliance of psychology here.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Well, the B-52 does in fact carry large amounts of cargo, which it unceremoniously unloads when flying over the destination. Getting someone to sign for that cargo at the end point has, historically, been a bit of a problem, but with this particular bird they chalk that up as a feature rather than a bug.
Get your facts straight guys. She's in Vegas now. That's in Nevada, same state where they did nuke tests. There is still hope.
"You superiour intellect is no match for our puny weapons" - The Simpsons
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
Wasn't it SIX?? Dammit.. How do we keep losing these things??
That's why there are, ta-dah! "transport" planes. Like a C-5. Or a C-17. One of those can probably carry a lot more than 6 missiles. Bombers are designed to transp... OOPS, did I drop that on you? things, not to deliver them from point A to point B intact with nobody getting hurt.
You don't put a cruise missile on a B-52 because you need to ship it somewhere. You do it because you want to make some kind of point.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Spelling/grammar nazis welcome (English is not my first language and I am trying to improve my spelling/grammar)
Could you imagine Kansas getting their hands on nukes? We'd all have three weeks to start implementing intelligent design in science class and ban gay people or they start the rain of fire!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
We need to know where you live ... Got any oil?
It's not "We got nuked, screw the elections we're declaring martial law" time yet is it?
;).
It's always too early for that
it's called posturing. they wanted nuclear somethign to make the papers - its' like they're telling al-qaeda "don't forget we still have these"
"the worst would of been a radiation leak that could of been cleaned up. The military has egg on their face but no-one was put in danger."
That's ok then. I'll pop the USAF a line to let them know if any of their nuclear armed planes are about to crash, to drop them on your property. Heck, if there's no danger it won't matter if the nukes crack open next to where your kids play. Only a radiation leak after all.
"Would have" not "would of" by the way.... I've never understood why coders of all people are slack with their grammar. You guys wouldn't tolerate it in the code you write...
Where was Homeland Sec. during all this? Were they too busy policing perilous nail clippers on board commercial flights and potential Toiletry Catastrophes of unprecedented magnitude? I'm not sure if I completely agree with the apparent focus of their resources. Perhaps they should consider adjusting the scope of their monitoring activities.
It's not so much that nukes were flown, but in the accountability of nuclear weapons. While the nukes were always under Air Force control and there was never any danger, the fact remains that the Air Force didn't know where six of its nukes were for three hours. They thought they were at the base when in fact they were on a plane. All of our military must have physically-verified paper accountability of all of its nuclear weapons for every second of every minute of every hour.... you get the picture.
Imagine an inspector coming up to the commander in those three hours, "Where are those nukes?" and he says "Oh, they're here in this --- OH SHIT!" You don't know at that moment if they've been misplaced or if they've been stolen. Everybody panics. The President must be informed.
Any violation of the accountability rules is taken dead seriously. You can get punished if the nukes never moved but you messed up the paperwork, so heads will roll here.
Disclaimer: I worked with nukes before, although not these.
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.
Maybe they were going "accidently" nuke new orleans...
we can only hope.
The Air Force, and the other branches of the U.S. Armed Forces.... the USAF does not exclusively run the nuke program in the USA, routinely moves nuclear weapons across the country all of the time. It is necessary for those involved that they know how to handle the real thing and not just play with dummy warheads all of the time.
Generally speaking, the "live" warheads will only go up when there is a time of increased alert (aka the various DefCon levels) mainly to prevent an accidental detonation, but nukes have additional safeguards well above and beyond normal chemical detonation (gunpowerder and C4 explosives) devices. And even those are safeguarded where during some training flights where true dummy warheads will be used that don't have any of the avionics or any kind of explosive on the airplanes. This would be for demo flights like at an airshow or for a flyby at a stadium for events like the Superbowl. I will note that since 9/11 when I've seen these demo flights in a public venue, the warheads on the fighters doing the flyby seem to me as if they were live warheads and not the standard dummy missiles that were on the fighters before hand, but this is just raw speculation based on relatively non-expert observations.
Even more surprising to me about this particular incident is that it was mentioned in the press at all. It is not our responsibility as citizens to know the status of any aircraft, ship, or other military unit in the U.S. armed forces or citizens of other countries to know about their military like this. Indeed knowing that information and having it publicized can significantly jepordize the lives of those military personnel who serve with that unit. If a reporter does find out this kind of information, they shouldn't publishing it, under threat of being prosecuted under federal espionage laws and divulging classified material. This is not to bury a blunder that some general or admiral made and doesn't want to have ruin his future military career, but to protect the lives of those who serve and to ensure that when the military does go into action that they have every possible advantage against potential enemies, and not to give potential enemies additional information that is not necessary.
This information should simply not be published in any news outlet, and I would have to agree that this is very likely to be a deliberate leak with authorization from a very high level in the military chain of command to let potential enemies know America has nuclear weapons, and routinely make them available to junior officers (aka the pilot of this particular aircraft) and have them available at a moments notice to be delivered nearly anywhere in the world. If this is the message, then the USAF should consider that the message is received, at least by an ordinary American citizen.
If anybody reading this think it is a sign of gross incompetence on the part of the USAF, they are missing the point of what really happened. You shouldn't be hearing about things like this in the news, as it is about unit operations and routine operations at that. If every time a nuclear warhead is moved was published in the news media, you would hear about it every day As such, this isn't really "news", any more than even having the space shuttle be moved to the launch pad. And the USAF has far more than 4 bombers, nor does the USAF do only 3 flights per year with its bomber fleet. If anybody is showing a huge lack of judgement, it is on the part of the editors and reporters involved with this news story, not USAF personnel.
AMMO!
For those unfamiliar with Air Force traditions, IYAAYAS stands for If You Ain't Ammo, You Ain't Shit
Members of Air Force munitions squadrons, responsible for the storage, handling, and loading of weapons on USAF aircraft, are a notoriously independent bunch. Except when transporting and loading weapons on aircraft, they live in their own tightly guarded compounds (REALLY tight if storing nukes). Some say this is to limit access to the weapons, but many in the Air Force believe it's to limit exposure to the "special" breed of troop that spends his days counting BBs. This seclusion has given them their own separate identity, which they proudly proclaim with the above acronym as well as shouting AMMO! in unison whenever their squadron is mentioned.
Something tells we won't be hearing AMMO! yelled around Minot AFB for a while. . .
What?
While strategic bomber patrols were a common practice during the Cold War (particularly before ICBMs were available to deliver the nukes), Bush Sr. and Gorbachev agreed in 1991 to stop flying nukes on bombers, along with some other terms. Russia has recently backpedaled on this treaty, resuming the bomber patrols though supposedly without nukes on board. In doing so, they cited opposition to U.S. plans to build anti-missile defenses in eastern Europe. If the U.S. had been violating the agreement all along, that would have made for a much better justification for Russia's move, and they presumably would have mentioned it.
Do you have any source for your claim that the U.S. flies nuclear patrols on a daily basis, or even that they have done so at any time post-Cold War?
It is very much that nukes were flown, it is a treaty violation, and a biggie. It is the reason there is account ability in place to help ensure this doesn't happen.
;)
"...the fact remains that the Air Force didn't know where six of its nukes were for three hours."
I know the press likes to make it seem that way, but that is probably not true at all. Based on my experience I would say it isn't true at all.
They new they were on the missile. They new the missiles had been moved. If anyone went to look for them, they would have known immediately where they were.
Yes, of course the president is notified, because he will need to deal with the political ramifications of the treaty violation. Not bbecause people are 'panicking'. In my experience with nukes we don't panic, we quickly deal with the issue.
Sorry, but I feel I need to be clear The media is implying that the nation was in some sort of dangerous situation and someone could have been killed. Some sites are implying that this nearly lead to a nuclear explosion. Fortunately the main stream media has at least put the comments in saying detonation wasn't possible;which as you know is true.
"Disclaimer: I worked with nukes before, although not these."
meh, who hasn't?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
They'd know they were carrying ordnance, and they'd know that the bombs might be nukes, but they wouldn't know for certain what was actually inside the casings.
For every nuke in our arsenal, there's a set of dummy weapons with exactly the same look and feel. The only people allowed near the vehicle while the ordnance is being loaded are the loaders themselves, and even they probably don't know whether the weapons are real or not.
It's a security measure. A load of nukes is both extremely valuable and extremely dangerous. If the Bad Guys knew they could get an arsenal by attacking a specific plane or by bending a few members of a specific flight crew, they'd try it. By the same token, if a few members of a flight crew managed to convince themselves it would be a good idea to convert a certain part of the planet to dirty glass, they might try that.
Running fake weapons most of the time eliminates the certainty of payoff in both cases. But an investigation and reprisals are damn well certain, so it just isn't worth attacking a plane or letting a few bombs fall on the off-chance that they might be real.
You're correct (as far as I know) that we stopped carrying live nukes at the end of the cold war, but that doesn't mean the drills with dummy weapons have ended. We really don't want to be at the low end of the learning curve if we end up needing nukes in a hurry.
In this case, it sounds like someone screwed up a requisition. Instead of calling for dummy weapons to be used in a practice flight, someone got real nukes instead. And yeah.. that's a case where the CO in charge of the base is in serious deep shit. We really don't want the people who take care of our nuclear arsenal to get confused about their inventory.
Here's the big problem with the incident:
The missiles sat around for ten hours unguarded. One or all of the warheads could have been removed and diverted to anybody...
There is another subtle, but still important problem:
The flight crew had no idea they were transporting nukes.
This was a 'Pinnacle' event.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
I don't know if Cargo crews have the certifications and clearances to transport said weapons, bomber crews do.
There is more to science than physics!
www.iomalfunction.blogspot.com
To: new.guy@fortbrag.gov
Dude, I toldya five times already... the live ones are coded OMGWTFBBQ, and the fakies are ROFLCOPTER.
Quit fucking up or I'll suspend your ass with pay.
--1_1
Except this was just a "would've" spelled incorrectly as "would of". But frankly, I find all of this idiotic. There is no reason to maintain traditional spellings. Everything should be spelled phonetically, and then we could quit wasting our time on this crap. Just think of all the mindless drudgery our students would be saved from if they didn't have to learn to spell.
Yeeeeeah...
It's not like the crew of a training flight would get dummy arming codes, authorization protocols, and anything else they might need for live weaponry. After all, the whole point of a training exercise is to make the whole thing different enough from the real thing that no one could confuse the two.
And of course you can't turn the loyalties of people who work with nukes.. that would be like saying China could get classified nuclear weapon designs out of Los Alamos.