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Bomber arms itself with nuclear warheads instead of dud missiles
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| Omega_M |
:eek: :eek:
| 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 !! :nervous: |
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| Ian |
| only in..... wait, what state are we laughing at/trembling in fear from now ? |
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| Omega_M |
| That would be the entire States :o |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| America is a bad joke. |
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| stren |
| somehow I sense tubularbills was involved |
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| davidboenke |
| shame it wasnt flying over the middle east, realy needs a face lift imo.. |
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| Sunsnail |
| quote: | Originally posted by davidboenke
im a dumbass |
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| Omega_M |
| of the epic kind. |
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| tubularbills |
old news. this happened on the 31st of August. :o
| 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.... |
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| Omega_M |
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. |
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| tubularbills |
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;) |
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| Omega_M |
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. |
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