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."

We got some flyin' to do

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.

Re:We got some flyin' to do

You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!

Re:We got some flyin' to do

So flying over other countries with nukes on board is okay, but its not back home?

Re:We got some flyin' to do

Keep in mind, they weren't just flying them as cargo: They were flying with them attached to the wing. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's not something the US has done anywhere in the world for decades.

Re:We got some flyin' to do

Keep in mind, they weren't just flying them as cargo: They were flying with them attached to the wing. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's not something the US has done anywhere in the world for decades.

It's true that they haven't done that for decades. They stopped flying nukes around on the wing in 1991 when there was an accident and they were deemed an unnecessary risk.

That having been said, they weren't in a condition that they would of detonated if the plane had crashed; 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.

Re:We got some flyin' to do

So flying over other countries with nukes on board is okay, but its not back home?

That's pretty much the entire purpose of a weapon: to create an important distinction between the one doing the pointing and the one being pointed at.

Re:We got some flyin' to do

Now then, Dmitri, you know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the Bomb...

The *Bomb*, Dmitri... The *hydrogen* bomb!...

Well now, what happened is... ahm... one of our base commanders, he had a sort of... well, he went a little funny in the head... you know... just a little... funny. And, ah... he went and did a silly thing... Well, I'll tell you what he did. He ordered his planes... to attack your country...

Ah... Well, let me finish, Dmitri... Let me finish, Dmitri... Well listen, how do you think I feel about it?... Can you *imagine* how I feel about it, Dmitri?...

Re:We got some flyin' to do

Interesting article, and given that the consensus elsewhere is that it would be impossible to "accidentally" move the nukes without higher approval, it looks believable. I'm wondering if they weren't intended to be used as a frame-up?

1. Fire nuke-tipped but partially disabled (chemical explosion only) cruise missiles at centrifuge sites in Iran
2. Follow up with the other 1,200 missiles
3. Find weapons grade material scattered around centrifuge sites
4. ?????
5. Profit!

So how many weapons were involved?

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?"

Re:So how many weapons were involved?

The game's up, President. There are no more missiles left on that plane.

Oh, c'mon, you don't expect me to fall for that old trick.

It's not a trick! There was one launched at Mr. Body in the study, two for the chandelier, two at the lounge door, and one for the singing telegram.

That's not six.

One plus two plus two plus one.

Uh-uh. There was only one nuke that got the chandelier. That one plus two plus ONE plus one.

Even if you're right, that would be one plus one plus two plus one, not one plus two plus one plus one.

Alright, fine, one plus two plus one..........SHUT-UP!

Re:Tell us again?

Oh please.

The Japanese had it coming.

Period.

Japanese abuse of anyone non-Japanese was all but government policy. Japanese troops tied women to trees in Nanking and drove sharpened bamboo poles up their vaginas. American prisoners of war prayed to be bombed by their own forces to end their suffering.

The most conservative estimates at the time by the US Military estimated that an invasion of the home islands would have cost at least 500,000 civilian Japanese lives. That's conservative, mind you.

We dropped a couple bombs, killed 80,000, and they surrendered - but even then there was a plot by Japanese extremists in the Imperial Army to steal the tapes of the Emperor's surrender radio broadcast before they could be aired, as they wanted to keep fighting.

A "demonstration" of the atomic blast for the Japanese would merely have been suppressed by the Japanese military.

The Japanese got off easy. When a nation chooses to embark on wars of aggression and piracy, its citizens must bear the consequences. It's a lesson we in the US should learn, as we meekly accept a government that appears more corrupt with each coming day, but to argue that the use of nuclear weapons during WW2 is to ignore the historical realities of the time. The world was a big old slaughterhouse back then, and with a couple of big booms we ended it.

The lesson we should take from that time is how General MacArthur turned Japan into a thriving democracy within five years. If the Bush administration had been less concerned about how to maximize profit for civilian contractors and more interested in studying what MacArthur did for Japan and what the Marshall Plan did for Europe we wouldn't have such a mess in Iraq right now.

Three and a half hours is a long time

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.

Re:Three and a half hours is a long time

Here is a cheerful thought for you. What if the ground crew didn't pay attention to live nukes because they were loading them day and night for, say, last two weeks?

As a more qualified poster indicated, it is unthinkable that the nuclear warheads would be even stored where any soldier can drive a forklift in, pick up a few crates and cart them out. James Bond movies are not a guide, I know, but don't they *lock the doors* for example, with keys stored in locked safes of base's big brass, and with two or three keys needed together to unlock? If the storage was open (by who? a lowly ground crewman can't do that, I hope!) and accessible (like no armed guard at the doors?) then the weapons were supposed to be moved, despite what the official line is, and the fsckup is just that they were loaded on a wrong plane. That is not very encouraging.

Re:Three and a half hours is a long time

I once saw a Navy weapons storage facility where many of the bunkers had their doors blocked with 20,000 pound blocks of concrete. You needed a big crane to remove the block before you could open the door of the bunker. Official policy was to neither confirm or deny the presence of nuclear weapons, but most people assumed that they were being stored there. This was back when the Navy still had tactical nukes.

Terrorist.....who????

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?

Re:Terrorist.....who????

It is a common tactic to tell a story that makes you look bad in order to cover up the real story that is even worse.

What do you think could be the worse story?

Mistakenly?

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?

Re:Mistakenly?

How exactly does one mistakenly mount nuclear weapons on a plain?

Because it is easier than mounting nuclear weapons on a prairie?

uh oh?

Ex-CIA agent Larry Johnson has a different take on this incident:

http://tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/sep/05/st aging_nuke_for_iran [tpmcafe.com]

This is troubling all the way around

I've been reading comments all over the place about this. People who say they've served in the military and worked with nukes say that this sort of thing simply cannot happen, too many people checking each other, too many safeguards. For this to happen would require an unbelievable number of screw-ups all working together. But if that's so, then the only other explanation seems crazy, that this was no accident.

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/st aging_nuke_for_iran [tpmcafe.com]

Why the hubbub over a B-52 taking off from a B-52 base in Minot, North Dakota and subsequently landing at a B-52 base in Barksdale, Louisiana? That's like getting excited if you see a postal worker in uniform walking out of a post office. And how does someone watching a B-52 land identify the cruise missiles as nukes? It just does not make sense.

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_nuclear _bombs.php [fas.org]

"If the B-52 incident tells us that the military's command and control system cannot ensure with 100% certainty which weapons are nuclear and which ones are not, imagine the implications of the wrong weapon being used in a crisis or war. 'Sorry Mr. President, we thought it was conventional.'"

As for the official story about transporting these weapons by air for decommissioning, that's fishy.

Although nuclear weapons are not flown on combat aircraft under normal circumstances, they are routinely flown on selected C-17 and C-130 transport aircraft, which as the Primary Nuclear Airlift Force (PNAF) are used to airlift Air Force nuclear warheads between operational bases and central service and storage facilities in the United States and in Europe (see overview here).

Interesting quote

"Nothing like this has ever been reported before and we have been assured for decades that it was impossible," said Markey, D-Mass., co-chair of the House task force on nonproliferation. (emphasis mine).

He's not claiming that it never happened before, just that it's never been reported before.

Much better than crashing with a bomb on board...

http://www.portaec.net/library/peace/1950_bomber_c rash_in_bc.html [portaec.net]

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.

Obligatory

"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

Scene in cockpit

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.

Broken Arrow!

"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"

Nukes on plane?

And I was not even allowed to check in toothpaste.

I don't think that's the problem

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.

Re:I don't think that's the problem

It's not obvious to you?
You've GOT to know where these things are always.

You can't accidentally stick them on some transport.

If anything deserves a tonne of Red Tape and Bureaucracy, it's the storage and movement of Nukes. Surely.

Re:We have 3 options here

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.

Unloaded Gun == Loaded Gun

Professionals treat any gun like it's loaded, always.

Re:We have 3 options here

Barksdale, where they landed, is in fact where bombing missions in the Middle East are staged out of. Politerati can't decide whether this was a real leak by a concerned officer who wanted people to know that the U.S. was staging nukes for Iran; or a deliberate leak by the Bush Administration so that Iran would know.

Re:We have 3 options here

I was reading this thread, for entertainment. Then I read this comment and my skin crawled.

Re:We have 3 options here

You have good reason for it to crawl. From the BBC coverage:

[quote] (Retired Air Force Major General)Shepperd said the United States 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.

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

So right away you can tell that a cover-up is happening, because decommissioned warheads would not be fixed on cruise missile tips and flown to the base where mideast bombings are staged. It is very possible that both US and Russia violate their agreements in secret, so that part is not a major issue IMHO. But something very unfunny is going on.

Re:We have 3 options here

I'm with you on this one. I was listening to the news earlier and I was thinking the exact same thing.

However, I seriously doubt that nuclear weapons are staged in such a way, so it doesn't make sense that an officer would be worried about the use of the weapons. Secondly, I doubt that it's so easy to get a nuke on a plane that one can mistake a rack of nukes for a rack of anything else, so it was probably loaded by order; however, a hypothetical officer may be worried about leadership decisions that led the bombs to be put on the plan, and thought that the only way around the situation was to go to the press, otherwise an unsuitable leader would remain in a position of power, and the incident would be swept under the Air Force rug. That's plausible assessment.

This really does smell more like a political leak. The thing that bothers me most is that I'm not sure what end it's supposed to achieve.

Re:We have 3 options here

B-52s are an evolving aircraft

Does George Bush know about them? I can't imagine he'd be too happy if he did.

cargo, lots and lots of cargo

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.

Re:Why is this even a story?

Yes, we possess tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, and yes they get transported sometimes. So what?

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.

Re:Why is this even a story?

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.

Re:Why is this even a story?

Moderators: WOOOOOOOOSH! That's the sound of sarcasm being accidentally flown over your head.

Re:Why is this even a story?

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.

Not quite right.

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.

Anonymous Idiot

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.

Re:Why is this even a story?

"why the hell are we decommissioning cruise missiles"

Didn't you read the label?

Best if used before Sept. 2007

Re:The worst that could have happened

No, the worst thing that could have happened is that they could have been stolen.

As a previous poster mentioned, the Air Force is supposed to know exactly where every warhead is, all of the time. Period.

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.

Re:Why is this even a story?

There's several undetonated US nuclear bombs and missiles missing, and waiting for someone finding them.

• 1 bomb, lost in ocean outside British Columbia on 2/13/1950
  
• 1 plane with 2 bombs, lost "somewhere in or around the Mediteranean", 3/10/1956
  
• 2 bombs, dropped in ocean outside Cape May in the Atlantic, 7/28/1957
  
• 1 bomb, lost in ocean outside Savannah, Georgia, 5/25/1958
  
• 1 bomb, dropped into a swamp in North Carolina and never found, 1/24/1961
  
• 1 missile, lost in the Pacific, 6/4/1962
  
• 1 missile, lost in the Pacific, 6/20/1962
  
• 1 plane with 1 bomb, rolled off USS Ticonderoga outside Japan, 12/5/1965
  
• 1 bomb, lost in the ocean outside Spanish village Palomares, 1/17/1967
  
• 1 bomb, lost in ocean outside Greenland, 1/22/1968. This was first reported as retrieved by navy seals in 1979, but newer information shows this unlikely to be the case.
  
  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.
  

Re:Nukes weren't live - Shitty reporting

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.

Re:Nukes weren't live - Shitty reporting

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.

Re:How do we keep track of our weapons?

> 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?

Now *that's* +5 Funny.

Re:How do we keep track of our weapons?

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?

By their distinct isotropic [wikipedia.org] signature.

We can tell U.S. Plutonium from Soviet Plutonium from Chinese Plutonium. Rather easily, I gather.

Re:B-52?

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 :)