“I can no longer sit back and allow the international Islamist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.”
A B-52 bomber flew the length of the United States last week loaded with six nuclear-armed cruise missiles in a major security breach.
The lapse was reported to President George W. Bush after the nuclear warheads were discovered when the aircraft landed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, a military official said on condition of anonymity.
An air force official, who also asked to remain unnamed, said the B-52, which originated at Minot Air Base in North Dakota, had six cruise missiles with nuclear warheads loaded on pylons under its wings.
A nuclear weapons expert said the air force keeps a computerized command and control system that traces any movement of a nuclear weapon so that they have a complete picture of where they are at any given time.
Unless a loose wingnut decides to send them off on his own – and no one notices.
“That’s perhaps what is most worrisome about this particular incident — that apparently an individual who had command authority about moving these weapons around decided to do so,” he said.
“It’s a command and control issue and it’s one that calls into question the system, because if one individual can do that who knows what can happen,” he said.
It’s bad enough we have to worry about the sanity of the clown who has his finger on the button – legally. Now, it looks like the flawless command and control system to oversee lower-level nutcases – is useless, too.
#31 JimR… “How do you threaten the Iranians to stop their nuclear activities, without actually threatening them? It’s so obvious it’s comical.”
Although it’s obvious, it’s far from certain. I made the mistake of believing that preparations (including the congressional resolution) for war with Iraq might be the very same type of gamesmanship to which you refer — an attempt to show Saddam we meant business in an attempt to coerce compliance. I found out later that the decision for war had already been made much sooner, virtually carved in stone at that point.
#33 i really don’t think it was a fumble — i think the russians clearly are reminding us of their capabilities, as surely as moving the nukes was a reminder to the iranians.
was it teddy roosevelt who said “speak softly and carry a big stick”?
#34 minutes eh? damn, let’s hope cooler head prevail
Gary, King George and his merry men aren’t stupid enough to start a nu-clu-er war. … are they?
On the other hand, Peabrain Ahmadinejad might give it a shot. What’s the US going to do, shoot nukes back? They can’t. The fallout would destroy friendly countries.
Interesting way to celebrate the two year anniversary of Katrina.
Incomming call from NORAD Sir!
#37 JimR… “The fallout would destroy friendly countries.”
As “friendly countries” become less numerous, that issue will soon fade away 😉
#34, Jägermeister,
Who needs subs? You can launch a few of these babies from a light cruiser and be done with it!
http://tinyurl.com/37nr5d
#40, You’re right Gary, now we know Bushwhacker’s bigger plan… to make everyone hate the USA so he can nuke Iran and take out the eastern hemisphere with a clear conscience.
Brilliant!
…
As long as the film the explosions in HD. There aren’t any really good films of mushroom clouds.
6 nuclear-armed cruise missiles… $8 million
B52 Bomber… $61 million
Alienate your friends so you can blow up Iran….
Priceless!
“There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s MusterCard.”
#41 BubbaRay
A Trident missile will deliver the payload faster than a scramjet, but on the other hand… the missile is a onetime use delivery vehicle, whereas the scramjet can return home after it has delivered the payload.
#44 JimR, nice ad!
Anyone who hears voices in his head should definitely have a lower credit limit 😉
#44, JimR, “B52 Bomber… $61 million”
You’ll need a higher limit on that Master Card, did you see this about the rich Russian who tried to buy a B-52 at an airshow?
http://tinyurl.com/2lckym
Bubba, didn’t they cost just $60 million to build? Of course that was a few decades ago. I didn’t factor in Inflation and scarcity. $500 million for a used one? I’ll wait until they drop the price to $300 million, and It better have replaceable batteries!
If I had to throw out a conspiracy theory, it would be that this incident was staging intentionally to prepare the public for an “accidental” in the Middle East or the earlier mention theory of suggesting to Iran that we are moving nukes closer to them.
As a boomer I grew up with the fear of atomic annihilation at any moment. At school we learned that getting under a wooden desk “Duck and Cover” can protect us from an atomic blast – so we actually thought why doesn’t the army use wooden desks then?
CD meant Civil Defense – we were quite used to the Emergency Broadcast System alerts – “had this been a real emergency…” and you didn’t have a wooden desk handy you’re fucked!
The air force happened to lose a few H Bombs (broken arrows) but hey we couldn’t find them and they weren’t armed so BFD…right?
Yes it is true that a nuke is not like black powder when you hit it too hard it goes off.
On May 22, 1957, a B-36 bomber carrying a nuclear weapon accidentally dropped its cargo about 4 miles south of the control tower at Kirtland Air Force Base.
http://tinyurl.com/2596ny
As was usual procedure, the plutonium pit of the weapon had been removed for transport, although the pit was still on the plane. And as usual, the bomb was designed not to explode on impact, but rather through a signal from a trigger device, said Dave Jackson, 73, former director of public affairs for the Department of Energy in Albuquerque.
“It could not, under any circumstances, have produced a nuclear detonation,” Jackson said.
Still, the bomb accidentally fell during landing. It slipped loose in a standard procedure designed to keep flyers safe, Taylor said.
“The parachute on the bomb opened, and the control tower asked the pilot `Do you have hot cargo aboard?’ ” Taylor said. “He said, `Not any more, I lost it back there.’ ” 😉
Cheers
“I can no longer sit back and allow the international Islamist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.”
The sad part is that the more you see Dr. Strangleove the more truthful it was and is
Often in life it all comes down to personalities
General Ripper was patterned after General Curtis Lemay
How it all comes down to that he Russian premier is drunk at the time with a women
It was not possible at the time to criticize or even discuss ” the bomb” as such
Stanley Kubrick did it in the old Jewish manner – through humor- such as Mel Brooks did “Springtime with Hitler”
It was reputed that an air force group toured the movie set
They were shocked that Kubrick got all the details down pat – down to the bibles and the condoms in the crews emergency kits
#48, JimR, maybe that $500M is adjusted for inflation and the incredible number of mods. The last B-52s off the line in 1961 cost about $9.3M.
Still, that’s one sweet airplane, kinda like the DC-3 or the J3 cub – it just keeps doin’ the job. Did you see this video of the monster R/C B-52? I wonder what that baby cost….
http://tinyurl.com/yoqdjr
And yet, what can we do about it? Oh yeah! Absolutely nothing…
I’d forgotten about cage match. Cripes Bubba, that was impressive!
Payload must be around 20 cats.
This smells like a black op for government sponsored terrorism. If the nuclear missiles have tracking systems and they were disabled… That would have to be done by people very high up.
The worry isn’t that the plane would crash. Its that it would fly somewhere and dump the missiles. Maybe on the USS Enterprise, San Francisco, the US capitol or a oil tanker farm.
Than they could blame on Iran and go in Attack Iran, South Korea China or anyone else they wanted. Maybe even Russia. And also use it to fear monger the US population. Which they are doing.
Without the codes to program into the missiles for launch, flight profile, and target intended these weapons are just so much scrap.
They can be launched all day long and never do anything but drop and hit the ground. The engines wouldn’t even start. They’d just fall like anyother bomb but no explosion. But I gotta say this, more than just someone’s going to get their career ripped out from under them.
ON NUCLEAR SAFETY
The sad fact of the matter is that, during peacetime conditions of relaxed threat especially, humans work better under fear than rah-rah inspiration ‘to do good things’.
Or at least that they need the full range foot to head of known consequences by which they can measure both the exact penalty for falling down. And how high they can reach ‘above and beyond’ while standing on that same floor of known fiduciary responsibilities.
Those in charge of nuclear weapons have a _greater_ than normal accountability for the warrantability of their actions at all times.
The USAF has failed miserably to clean house at both bases to reflect this, in creating a NEGATIVE EXAMPLE by which to ‘inspire’ others to ride herd on their own stockpiles.
The commander of the Louisiana base, along with the Wing Commander with the B-52 tail number on his TOE books are thus –both- equally responsible for the actions of the aircrew under their leadership, on and off base.
Similarly, the Commander of Minot. Along with the Director of Operations and the Maintenance Squadron Officer are equally responsible for every man on the weapons detail.
All four should be publicly court martialled and forced to serve a minimum term of imprisonment not less that 2 years.
While every one of the men directly involved with the Broken Spear event itself should be given blanket dishonorable discharges, along with a permanent record in civilian life, as an alternative to also defending their actions in Court Martial proceedings.
Yet for all this, what REALLY bugs me is this. When you upload a modern weapon (and the AGM-129 is a relatively modern one) it should ‘talk to’ the aircraft over a 1760 data buss which provides both conditioned power and specific digital communications pathway (1553b or related) that SHOWS, in the cockpit, what the missile autopilot /thinks/ it has in it’s warhead section. As a function of simple BIT checks and weapons system interfacing procedures that should be part of the OSO/WSO/RadarNav preflight checklist. Because these are nuclear weapons (dual key) a SIMILAR display should be cross checked by BOTH pilots up in front.
While I greatly disagree with the retirement of standoff weapons in favor of or before direct delivery (free fall) systems, if the AGM-129 ACM does not in fact have such a system, and/or the aircraft which was sent to retrieve the missiles was not able to ‘talk to them’ in confirming their status, this signals another high level breach of security by _preconditional_ (doctrinal) protocol shortcomings.
This means someone in the AF General Staff needs to fall on their sword as well.
We need nuclear weapons. In a few years when we fail to contain these systems proliferative export to or development by 3rd world nations, we will NEED them a lot more than we ever did during the Cold War. But like my daddy told me when he taught me to use a gun: There is a process of law in place to deal with unprovoked attacks so no one needs to be a hero. But accidents are as unforgivable as they are avoidable because the only recourse you have for your own stupidity is a mirror.
We can never be more dangerous to ourselves than we are to our enemies. Because they look at our peacetime competence as a measure of ‘Not Today’ planning for their own wars.
KPl.
What bugs me about this report about the movement of missiles with nuclear warheads on a B 52 is not that it happened. Even though *mistakes* like this are not supposed to happen. And go unnoticed by all the many folks involved.
What bugs me is that the report was published in the military-oriented press. The movement of nuclear weapons is not something that the US military talks about in public. Typically, the comment goes *We neither confirm nor deny.*
So how come this particular movement made it into the press?
Something was going on that made somebody leak it.