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Bomber arms itself with nuclear warheads instead of dud missiles

quote:

Six nuclear warheads on air-launched cruise missiles were mistakenly carried on a flight from North Dakota to Louisiana last week, prompting a major investigation, military officials have confirmed. The plane took the cruise missiles from Minot Air Force Base to Barksdale Air Force Base for decommissioning Thursday, the Air Force said. The warheads should have been removed from the missiles before they were attached to the B-52 bomber, according to military officials. 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. The mistake was discovered after the plane's six-hour flight to Louisiana. "The public was never in any danger," Thomas said. But officials also said the incident was a major breach of security rules surrounding nuclear weapons. One Air Force official said that he could not recall anything similar happening. The Air Force announced that all flights of fighters and bombers in the United States will be halted on September 14 to allow for a review of procedures. Because the incident involved nuclear weapons, it was serious enough that President Bush was notified, according to military officials. Once the mistake was discovered, the Air Force immediately began an inventory of all of its nuclear weapons, a military official said. Maj. Gen. Douglas Raaberg, director of Air and Space Operations at the Air Combat Command in Langley, Virginia, has been ordered to investigate how the nuclear-tipped missiles were flown across the country without anyone knowing, officials said. A military official told CNN there was no nuclear risk to public safety because the weapons were not armed. Officials believe that if the plane had crashed or the missiles somehow had fallen off the wings, the warheads would have remained inert and there would have been no nuclear detonation, though conventional explosive material in the warhead could have detonated. Military officials also say the missiles could not have been launched because of multiple security procedures required to be enacted before any launch would have been authorized. Shepperd said the U.S. had agreed in a Cold War-era treaty not to fly nuclear weapons. "It appears that what happened was this treaty agreement was violated," he said. He agreed with military officials that the situation could not have caused a nuclear detonation, but added, "Any time you have nuclear material on board, if the airplane crashes, nuclear material can be spread in the immediate area of the crash, so you get radioactivity in the immediate area of the crash." "This is serious business but it was not dangerous business," Shepperd said.

Holy Shit !!

only in..... wait, what state are we laughing at/trembling in fear from now ?

That would be the entire States

America is a bad joke.

somehow I sense tubularbills was involved

shame it wasnt flying over the middle east, realy needs a face lift imo..

quote:

Originally posted by davidboenke im a dumbass

of the epic kind.

old news. this happened on the 31st of August.

quote:

Originally posted by stren somehow I sense tubularbills was involved

the b52s are constantly flying in and out of here. we never know what's on them.

but you know what? absolutely nothing happened w/ the cargo from minot. i mean, we put them in our nuke bomb holder places (which you can see on google maps if you're curious). but that's it.

and in the event that something had happened en-route , the bombs wouldn't have been detinated (sp?).

think about this, however, how many times this goes on daily, and you never hear about it....

Barksdale Air Force Base, that's where you work right ?

The thing is, that these incidents should never happen, however countless number of times the bombers fly in. One mistake and a town will go up in smoke.

yes, that's where i work.

don't worry, a few airmen got fired for it, most likely.

edit,

also your tag line for this thread is incorrect. the transport knew that it was supposed to be nukes....and not duds. that was the whole point of bringing them to Barksdale....so they could be decommissioned.

stop playing Fox News and trying to freak everyone out and making it look really worse than it was

Were the nukes being decommissioned or the missiles ? I suspect it was the missiles with the nuclear warheads removed.

quote:

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.

quote:

Originally posted by Omega_M Were the nukes being decommissioned or the missiles ? I suspect it was the missiles with the nuclear warheads removed.

quote:

The plane took the cruise missiles from Minot Air Force Base to Barksdale Air Force Base for decommissioning Thursday, the Air Force said.

yes, the missiles were being decommissioned.
*edited*

quote:

Originally posted by tubularbills but they were put in the cargo part of the plane. it's not like the plane was carrying bombs that could have been dropped if the pilot pressed the "go" button or whatever. and if the plane would have crashed, they still wouldn't have detonated.

Umm...no.

quote:

The warheads should have been removed from the missiles before they were attached to the B-52 bomber, according to military officials.

quote:

Officials believe that if the plane had crashed or the missiles somehow had fallen off the wings, the warheads would have remained inert and there would have been no nuclear detonation, though conventional explosive material in the warhead could have detonated.

quote:

Military officials also say the missiles could not have been launched because of multiple security procedures required to be enacted before any launch would have been authorized.

no detonation, but perhaps a radioactive leak ?
I saw it on 24! so it must be true

quote:

Originally posted by Omega_M Umm...no.

quote:

Officials believe that if the plane had crashed or the missiles somehow had fallen off the wings, the warheads would have remained inert and there would have been no nuclear detonation, though conventional explosive material in the warhead could have detonated.

emphasis on could. doesn't mean it WILL.

quote:

Officials believe that if the plane had crashed or the missiles somehow had fallen off the wings, the warheads would have remained inert and there would have been no nuclear detonation, though conventional explosive material in the warhead could have detonated.

how is that possible ? isn't it a chain reaction ?

the emphasis here is on the fact that the missiles were loaded on the wings and were not put in the cargo part of the plane.

better article...

quote:

Nuclear warheads mistakenly flown on B-52 WARHEADS FLOWN ON B-52 By Michael Hoffman, Military Times A B-52 bomber mistakenly loaded with at least five nuclear warheads flew from Minot Air Force Base, N.D, to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on Aug. 30, resulting in an Air Force-wide investigation, according to three officers who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the incident. The B-52 was loaded with Advanced Cruise Missiles, part of a Defense Department effort to decommission 400 of the ACMs. But the nuclear warheads should have been removed at Minot before being transported to Barksdale, the officers said. The missiles were mounted onto the pylons of the bomber's wings. Advanced Cruise Missiles carry a W80-1 warhead with a yield of 5 to 150 kilotons and are specifically designed for delivery by B-52 strategic bombers. Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Ed Thomas said the transfer was safely conducted and the weapons were in Air Force custody and control at all times. However, the mistake was not discovered until the B-52 landed at Barskdale, which left the warheads unaccounted for during the approximately 3-1/2 hour flight between the two bases, the officers said. "Air Force standards are very exacting when it comes to munitions handling," Thomas said. "The weapons were always in our custody and there was never a danger to the American public." An investigation headed by Maj. Gen. Douglas Raaberg, director of Air and Space Operations at Air Combat Command Headquarters, was launched immediately to find the cause of the mistake and figure out how it could have been prevented, Thomas said. Air Force officials wouldn't officially specify whether nuclear weapons were involved, in accordance with long-standing Defense Department policy regarding nuclear munitions, Thomas said. However, the three officers close to the situation did confirm the warheads were nuclear. The crews involved with the mistaken load at the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot have been temporarily decertified from performing their duties involving munitions pending corrective actions or additional training, Thomas said. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the munitions squadron commander also was relieved of his duties. The AP also reported that the bomber was carring six nuclear warheads, not five as sources told the Military Times. Officials at Minot immediately conducted an inventory of its nuclear weapons after the oversight was discovered, and Thomas said he could confirm that all remaining nuclear weapons at Minot are accounted for. At no time was there a risk for a nuclear detonation, even if the B-52 crashed on its way to Barksdale, said Steve Fetter, a former Defense Department official who worked on nuclear weapons policy in 1993-94. A crash could ignite the high explosives associated with the warhead, and possibly cause a leak of the plutonium, but the warheads' elaborate safeguards would prevent a nuclear detonation from occurring, he said. "The main risk would have been the way the Air Force responded to any problems with the flight because they would have handled it much differently if they would have known nuclear warheads were onboard," he said. The risk of the warheads falling into the hands of rogue nations or terrorists was minimal since the weapons never left the United States, according to Fetter and Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, an independent research and policy think tank in Washington, D.C. Air Combat Command will have a command-wide mission stand down Sept. 14 to review their procedures in response to this oversight, he said. "The Air Force takes its mission to safeguard weapons seriously," he said. "No effort will be spared to ensure that the matter is thoroughly and completely investigated."

btw, i don't understand how your article said that it was a 6 hour flight, because it's not.

i sense conspiracy

quote:

Originally posted by stren how is that possible ? isn't it a chain reaction ?

the style of nuke that was placed on the missile needs some kind of ignition. you drop it out of the sky, it won't do anything. it's not like they were carrying the same shit that got dropped on Hiroshima

quote:

Originally posted by stren how is that possible ? isn't it a chain reaction ?

A chain reaction does not occur unless the uranium reaches a critical mass. From what I have read somewhere, there needs to be a trigger mechanism that fires additional uranium into the bomb mass to make it critical. Or, a conventional explosion compresses the uranium mass to a higher density so that it reaches criticality. Besides, there must be a number of safety interlocks installed into the system to prevent unwanted detonations.

quote:

Originally posted by Omega_M A chain reaction does not occur unless the uranium reaches a critical mass. From what I have read somewhere, there needs to be some trigger mechanism that fires additional uranium into the bomb mass to make it critical. Or, a conventional explosion compresses the uranium mass to a higher density so that it reaches criticality. Besides, there must be a number of safety interlocks installed into the system to prevent unwanted detonations.

i.e. if the plane crashed, it wouldn't have detonated anything. and there wouldn't have been this nuclear explosion that would have wiped out millions of people like everyone is lead to believe would have happened.

quote:

Originally posted by Omega_M Or, a conventional explosion compresses the uranium mass to a higher density so that it reaches criticality.

that's what i meant

quote:

Originally posted by tubularbills better article... btw, i don't understand how your article said that it was a 6 hour flight, because it's not.

But the article still says

quote:

The missiles were mounted onto the pylons of the bomber's wings.

lololol.

Now take back your post about loading the bombs into the plane belly.

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