Nuclear Weapon Ooops

[Lisa Denton]

Military Explains Nuclear Weapon Mistake

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
WASHINGTON (AP) _ The Air Force is poised to report Friday on its six-week investigation into how nuclear-armed missiles were accidentally flown across the country without anyone noticing for more than a day.

In an embarrassing incident that lawmakers and military experts called very disturbing, the B-52 was mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and flown from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La. The plane sat on the tarmac for hours with the missiles after arriving in Louisiana before the breach was known _ meaning a total of some 36 hours passed before the missiles were properly secured, officials have said.

The incident was so serious that it required President Bush and Gates to be quickly alerted.
*************************************************************

Oh well, at least everthing was ok because President Bush was quickly alerted (?)

 

[Liar]

I'm not up to date here it seems. Who's Gates?

 

[Lisa Denton]

I'm not up to date here it seems. Who's Gates?

I didn't post the whole long story. Um, I think he is one of the generals or somebody who noticed some nuclear weapons had been mis-placed.

 

[rgraham666]

I though it was Bill Gates. He does run the country after all.

 

[Lisa Denton]

I though it was Bill Gates. He does run the country after all.

You could be right, he should have been notified.

Anyways, the story was sayin that the airforce and army was slightly embaressed by this small incident, and was investigating it.

It was prolly just a clerical error. Like maybe one base was supposed to ship another base some combat boots, but they was out of combat boots so they shipped them some nuclear weapons as a "replacement part" or something like that.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

LISA

Youre being facetious but SNAFUs are the hallmark of the military. A clerk likely keyed in the wrong munitions number. It happens.

The nukes were obviously on-hand for the weapons loaders to mount on the airplane. AND uranium hardened missles are used all the time to bust bunkers and heavy armor.

When I was in the Air Force we got a crate of Jewish prayer books and Bibles instead of the parts we ordered. On another occasion we ordered an engine for a truck and got a diesel generator. All it takes is one keystroke error by a clerk.

 

[CorsetLvr]

I'm not up to date here it seems. Who's Gates?

That would be the former President of Texas A&M University who took a lesser job as Secretary of Defense of the United States of America.

 

[Lisa Denton]

LISA

Youre being facetious but SNAFUs are the hallmark of the military. A clerk likely keyed in the wrong munitions number. It happens.

The nukes were obviously on-hand for the weapons loaders to mount on the airplane. AND uranium hardened missles are used all the time to bust bunkers and heavy armor.

When I was in the Air Force we got a crate of Jewish prayer books and Bibles instead of the parts we ordered. On another occasion we ordered an engine for a truck and got a diesel generator. All it takes is one keystroke error by a clerk.

Well, while I have less military experience than you, like none, even I know that nuclear tipped cruise missiles are not an item kept "on hand" or shipped to bust bunkers and heavy armor in Louisiana.

The news story is about how awesomely stupid this fustercluck is, not about a typo.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

http://arts.bev.net/roperldavid/politics/WeaponsRadioactive.htm

Its not as big a problem as you make it out to be. A clerk fucked up and the wrong missles got loaded. Big deal. A B52 should have air-to-air missles not tactical bunker busters.

Take a geiger counter, turn it on, and walk thru WAL-MART some time. The whole world is radioactive.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

LISA

At the battle of Midway in WWII the Japanese loaded their bombers with incendiary bombs rather than the case-hardened anti-ship bombs they needed. The incendiary bombs were around because the Japanese planned to bomb buildings on shore. THAT was a big fuck up.

 

[TxRad]

Hell, nuclear weapons at Barksdale Airfarce base is nothing new.

It was the home of SAC for a hundred years. B-52's have sat on the hot line 24/7 loaded with nuclear bombs since there were B-52's. B-47e's sat there load with Nuclear weapons before that.

I know i used to live there and watched those things fly overhead all day and night long.

There is no truth to the rumor that the people of northwestern Louisiana glow in the dark but I do need to say that the sales of night lights in that area is very low.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

TXRAD

Well, sure! We had a squadron of B-52s at MacDill for a while, back in 1971. I saw a few B-52s parked at Cam Ranh Bay Vietnam.

And radioactive munitions comes in all shapes and sizes.

 

[xssve]

Heard about that - duh-uh. Good thing the adults are still in charge.

 

[TxRad]

TXRAD

Well, sure! We had a squadron of B-52s at MacDill for a while, back in 1971. I saw a few B-52s parked at Cam Ranh Bay Vietnam.

And radioactive munitions comes in all shapes and sizes.

Nope, not what I'm saying.

Barksdale was the main nuclear retaliatory base for the cold war. Every B-52 there had one mission. Deliver a nuclear bomb to Cuba and Russia. They had bombs ready to go or in the air 24/7 for over 40 years. During the Cuban missile cris they scrambled everything on the base.

Do you have any idea what it's like when over fifty B-52's take off one after the other. No one sleeps for a hundred miles. The fact that they were load with nuclear weapons was common knowledge throughout the area. No one had a bomb shelter around there. We all knew we were at gtound zero if anything went down.

Just facts of life from the past.

 

[Lisa Denton]

http://arts.bev.net/roperldavid/politics/WeaponsRadioactive.htm

Its not as big a problem as you make it out to be. A clerk fucked up and the wrong missles got loaded. Big deal. A B52 should have air-to-air missles not tactical bunker busters.

Take a geiger counter, turn it on, and walk thru WAL-MART some time. The whole world is radioactive.

Big deal? I understand that you think nuclear weapons are perfectly safe stored alongside the washer/dryer combos in wal-mart, but the national AP news story is about getting rid of the idiots in high ranking military positions who feel that way.

Are you stoned or just stupid? We do not use nuclear tipped cruise missiles to bust bunkers in Louisianna.

Why the hell are you arguing with ME that the fucking nation of america is pissed off that the security of nuclear weapons is guarded by Prvt. Gomer Pyle?

Have two roses and nuke.

 

[Lisa Denton]

70 Punished in Accidental B-52 Flight
Updated 6:37 PM ET October 19, 2007
The airmen replaced the schedule with their own "informal" system, he said, though he didn't say why they did that nor how long they had been doing it their own way.
"This was an unacceptable mistake and a clear deviation from our exacting standards," Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne said at a Pentagon press conference with Newton. "We hold ourselves accountable to the American people and want to ensure proper corrective action has been taken."
Newton acknowledged that the Air Force needs to "restore the confidence" lost among the American people after the August incident, which raised questions about the safety of the country's nuclear arsenal.
"We are making all appropriate changes to ensure this has a minimal chance of ever happening again," Wynne said.
Newton said the flight in question resulted from an "unprecedented string of procedural errors," beginning with a failure by airmen to conduct a required inspection of the missiles before they were loaded aboard the B-52 bomber at Minot. The crew flying the plane was unaware nuclear warheads were on its wing, though it wasn't explained what role they played in the mistake.
Highest among those to be punished are four officers who were relieved this week of their commands, including the 5th Bomb Wing commander at Minot _ Col. Bruce Emig, who also has been the base commander since June.
In addition, the wing has been "decertified from its wartime mission," Newton said.
Some 65 airmen have been decertified from handling nuclear weapons. The certification process looks at a person's psychological profile, any medications they are taking and other factors in determining a person's reliability to handle weapons.
After it was loaded with the missiles, the B-52 sat overnight at Minot, flew the next morning to Louisiana, and then sat on a tarmac again for hours before anyone noticed the nuclear warheads.
Newton avoided repeated questions on what extra security would have been required if crews had known the nuclear weapons were on the plane. But another official later said privately that security was increased as soon as the nuclear warheads were discovered.
The Air Combat Command ordered a command-wide stand-down _ instituted base by base and completed Sept. 14 _ to set aside time for personnel to review procedures, officials said.
The incident was so serious that it required President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to be quickly informed.
Wynne prefaced his remarks about the B-52 incident by saying that, in publicly confirming that nuclear weapons were involved, he had authorized a one-time exception to U.S. policy, which states that the location of nuclear weapons will never be confirmed publicly. He said he made this exception because of the seriousness of the episode and its importance to the nation.
The weapon involved was the Advanced Cruise Missile, a "stealth" weapon developed in the 1980s with the ability to evade detection by Soviet radar. The Air Force said in March that it had decided to retire the Advanced Cruise Missile fleet soon, and officials said after the breach that the missiles were being flown to Barksdale for decommissioning.

 

[Lisa Denton]

Nope, not what I'm saying.

Barksdale was the main nuclear retaliatory base for the cold war. Every B-52 there had one mission. Deliver a nuclear bomb to Cuba and Russia. They had bombs ready to go or in the air 24/7 for over 40 years. During the Cuban missile cris they scrambled everything on the base.

Do you have any idea what it's like when over fifty B-52's take off one after the other. No one sleeps for a hundred miles. The fact that they were load with nuclear weapons was common knowledge throughout the area. No one had a bomb shelter around there. We all knew we were at gtound zero if anything went down.

Just facts of life from the past.

Hi TxRad. I helped someone doing research on that once. I remember some of the stuff. Aircrews rotated on the base constantly for an immediate scramble during the cold war. The idea being the base would be the soviets first target during a nuclear attack, the crews would attempt to get away fast enough to survive and retaliate. At one point they had lead-lined screens they could pull down to block the windows and save thier eye-sight from nuclear blasts, the problem with that was the chance they could run into a blind commercial pilot flying a plane full of people. Prior to that the pilot and co-pilot each wore one gold-lined eye-patch, the idea being if a nuclear blast blinded one eye they could simply take off the eye-patch and still have one good eye to complete thier mission.

The part most pertaining to this incidence however was a part I read about security on the base, due to the nukes, called the "no lone rule."

No person was ever allowed to be alone on the base. You had to have a guard accompany you anywhere, anytime. And security teams had orders to shoot first and ask questions later.

This pertains to this incidence in that not only was the aircrew unaware they were carrying nuclear weapons, so were the ground crews.

Nuclear weapons should not be just left laying around with no one knowing they are there.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

from Dr. Strangelove:

PRESIDENT MUFFLEY
Hello...Hello...Premier Belch...How are you?
This is Merkin...Yes, Merkin Muffley.
How are you?...Merkin Muffley...Sure it is
Just a second, will you hold on a second?

to AMBASSADOR DE SADE.

PRESIDENT MUFFLEY
He doesn't believe me.
(hands phone)
Please don't tell him more than that.


PRESIDENT MUFFLEY Hello?...Yes...Uh-huh...certainly I understand ...Oh someone tried it on you once before... Look, Belch, I'll tell you why I called... Hello...Hello...Can you hear me?...Say, could they turn the music down a little?...Oh, well, could they stop playing?...Oh, good, I thought we lost the connection there for a minute... yes, I hear you very clearly...Well, look... (clears throat)

You know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong?...With the H-bomb...uh-huh...that's right...Well, it happened...Hello?...Can you still hear me?... What?...Not missiles - planes...that's right... B-90's...That's right...Thirty-four of them... In about an hour and a half...uh-huh...Uh-huh ...Uh-huh...Well, how do you think I feel about it?...I know that...Uh-huh...Uh-huh...Well, why do you think I'm calling you?...to work some- thing out on this disarmament thing...Uh-huh... Sure, but you haven't been reasonable...Uh-huh... Uh-huh...Look Belch...Look, we're wasting time... Uh-huh...a base commander...We're not sure... Well, we think he's gone psycho...Had a mental breakdown...We're trying to do that...We're doing that right now...Well, we've got our fingers crosses...we're hoping...We're trying that too... Uh-huh...Uh-huh...Uh-huh...That's not fair for you to say...We're doing everything we possibly can ...Certainly...Sure I can imagine...Uh-huh...

PRESIDENT MUFFLEY (cont) Uh-huh...Uh-huh...Look, there's something else. We want to give your Air Staff a complete rundown on the targets, flight plans, and defensive systems of the planes ...No, it's on the level...Sure I hate to do a thing like that, but at this point it's got to be a case of one hand scratches the other...co-operate...Right now...Who should they call?...The People's Central Air Defense Headquarters?...Where?...In Karnak?...Right... You'll call them first...Uh-huh...Do you happen to have the phone number?...Just ask Karnak information?...

 

[Jubal_Harshaw]

...
Oh well, at least everthing was ok because President Bush was quickly alerted (?)

If they hadn't alerted him he might have hit the big red button while the plane was over Texas and he might have destroyed The Alamo.

 

[shereads]

Big deal? I understand that you think nuclear weapons are perfectly safe stored alongside the washer/dryer combos in wal-mart, but the national AP news story is about getting rid of the idiots in high ranking military positions who feel that way.

Are you stoned or just stupid?

He's just stupid.

Not to worry, though, Lisa. When this story first broke a few weeks ago, we were assured that it can't happen again because of failsafe procedures. Better ones, I'll bet, than the ones that didn't work.

What was left unanswered is whether the pilot and crew needed a change of underwear when they discovered they'd been buzzing their old fraternity house while transporting a cargo of what were supposed to be Acme Flanges but were actually nuclear weapons.

By coincidence, that was the same week this story broke: a man took delivery of a truck he'd bought at auction from a police bomb squad, and found it loaded with explosives. He was courteous enough to return them.

 

[shereads]

If they hadn't alerted him he might have hit the big red button while the plane was over Texas and he might have destroyed The Alamo.

Better that he find out from our own people than from, oh, Iran. Or North Korea.



We are, after all, supposed to be the responsible ones.

 

[Lisa Denton]

He's just stupid.

Not to worry, though, Lisa. When this story first broke a few weeks ago, we were assured that it can't happen again because of failsafe procedures. Better ones, I'll bet, than the ones that didn't work.

What was left unanswered is whether the pilot and crew needed a change of underwear when they discovered they'd been buzzing their old fraternity house while transporting a cargo of what were supposed to be Acme Flanges but were actually nuclear weapons.

Actually, I did think of some funny stuff like that.

And then, I thought about like maybe if the plane got in trouble and started dumping fuel and weapons. All kinds of shit could have happened because they didn't even know what kinda weapons they were carrying.

Prolly they would just drop some nuclear missiles on some herd of cattle and they wouldn't even blow up. But since the aircrew had no idea they was nuclear stealth cruise missiles capable of defeating soviet radar, it would be embaressing trying to explain to Putin that we accidentally nuclear bombed Moscow, ooops.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

LISA

If you check the facts the cruise missles AND the nuke warheads were supposed to go to Louisiana. But the nuke warheads were to be shipped in containers NOT on the missles. Okay?

So its a big fucking deal about nuthin because they were going to La anyway. And they werent armed.

You remind me of a DVD I own. In the movie the British army is attacked by 50,000 pissed-off warriors and the supply sergeant wont let soldiers have bullets without all the forms filled out in triplicate. You'd do that. People dying all around you while you moo & bellow for paperwork.

 

[Lisa Denton]

LISA

You remind me of a DVD I own.

You remind me of an idiot because you refuse to back down, thinking you are condescending to some airheaded pacifist bimbo who is screamin "save the triple-billed bluebirds" or somethin.

While I agree its serious, read the fuckin news Archie.

"Newton acknowledged that the Air Force needs to "restore the confidence" lost among the American people after the August incident, which raised questions about the safety of the country's nuclear arsenal.

The Air Combat Command ordered a command-wide stand-down _ instituted base by base and completed Sept. 14

The incident was so serious that it required President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to be quickly informed."

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

LISA

I confess I was thinking exactly that...airhead, pacifist bimbo.

I was in the Air Force. My son is career Air Force. I know how things work in the Air Force.

Take Vietnam. The SOP in Vietnam for perimeter defense was verbally challenge the intruder 3 times and fire 2 warning rounds before shooting to kill. In practice we executed the SOP in reverse order.

Now! Gigging 70 airmen for the SOP violation is SOP. Burn everyone remotely connected with the incident. In reality, a sergeant in charge of the munitions armory said "FUCK IT, THEYRE FLYING ON THE MISSLE, I AINT GOT TIME FOR THE PAPERWORK BS." Then the loaders sold the idea to the aircraft crew-chief, who got a verbal okay from the aircraft weapons officer. Three people made the decision, not 70.

I'm trying to figure out where in hell they'd store several warheads inside a B52. So likely someone else said FUCK YOU! YOURE NOT GETTING A GODDAMNED SPECIAL PLANE JUST FOR SOME WARHEADS.

Do you have some proof youre not an airhead, etc?