Flight of the nukes

Numerous overlapping investigations :> are being (you should pardon the expression)  Launched concerning exactly how it came to pass that  (emphases mine; internal links the WashPost's) ~

An Air Force B-52 bomber flew across the central United States last week with six cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads that were mistakenly attached to the airplane's wing...

The Stratofortress bomber, based at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, was transporting a dozen Advanced Cruise Missiles to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana on Aug. 30. But crews inadvertently loaded half of them with nuclear warheads attached.

Air Force officials said the warheads were not activated and at no time posed a threat to the public. But a timeline of the episode supplied by the Air Force yesterday to House and Senate lawmakers indicated that the missiles in question sat on a runway in Louisiana for nearly 10 hours before workers noticed that the nuclear warheads were inside.

Military officials also said they were concerned that the warheads were unaccounted for several hours while the missiles were in transit. The missiles never left Air Force control, they said.

Well,  it's reassuring to learn that the Boomers weren't actually "activated" (though I think we might Know it if they Were ~ well, Some of us might, anyway...)  and that their Control wasn't inadvertently transferred to the Shriners or somebody. :|  But to resume:

Two defense officials said it is unclear how stringent safeguards for the handling of nuclear weapons were skirted...Air Force officials said the mistake was a serious breach of rules and that an investigation began immediately.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the panel's ranking Republican...requested an investigation of the incident by the Pentagon's inspector general.

The aircraft's pilots and other crew members were unaware that they were carrying nuclear warheads, officials said. "Essentially, this is an issue of a departure from our very exacting standards," said Lt. Col. Edward Thomas, an Air Force spokesman at the Pentagon, who declined to confirm that nuclear warheads were involved. "The Air Force maintains the highest standards of safety and precision, so any deviation from these well-established munitions procedures is very serious, and we are responding swiftly."

(Continues after the Drop Jump :)

..."Nothing like this has ever been reported before, and we have been assured for decades that it was impossible," said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), co-chairman of the House Bipartisan Task Force on Nonproliferation...

The Air Force's Air Combat Command has ordered a stand-down for its bases next week to review procedures and prevent a repeat of the mistake...

Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters at a news conference yesterday that [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates was informed of the incident early last Friday and has been receiving daily progress reports. Morrell said President Bush was also notified.

"Now Mr. President, you remember how we've sometimes talked about The Bomb...the Bomb, Mr. President...the HYDROGEN bomb..."  :>   The Pentagon spokeman Declined to Confirm whether the President, upon being informed, took immediate action by calling up the Secretary to tell him "You're doing a heckuva job, Gatesy."  / Read the whole article.

Washington Post National & Homeland Security blogger William M. Arkin says (boldface added):

...How worried should we be? More worried than the Pentagon says we should be, certainly -- but not as worried as some of its critics want us to be.

This incident has followed the usual pattern: a small leak in the Military Times newspapers, followed by mainstream media attention, followed by lame statements from the military, followed by angry remarks from members of Congress and apocalyptic statements by anti-nuclear groups...

...Despite the huffing and puffing of the professional concerned, the danger to the good people of the United States from the B-52 crashing or a missile spontaneously exploding was probably infinitesimal. Still, the reality is that six nuclear warheads were removed from their bunkers in North Dakota, loaded onto a bomber, flown across the United States for three and a half hours, and then left on a parking apron for another 10 hours -- and no one noticed.

...There is no explanation for this incident other than gross incompetence on the part of the munitions and flight crews. This has nothing at all to do with the Bush administration's commitment to arms control, the military's attention being focused elsewhere or the fact that we have too many nuclear weapons in too many places.

Still, I would wager that if Congress wants to push the issue, we are going to find out that there have been hundreds of similar incidents over the years...

Whole thing.

Comments

[Mike]

"Still, I would wager that if Congress wants to push the issue, we are going to find out that there have been hundreds of similar incidents over the years..."

I've gotta call B.S. on that statement. Hundreds of incidents? Please. A simple google search would reveal that this isn't the first time this has happened and that almost every time it does the military is quick to get out a statement regarding the incident, at least in recent, post Cold War years. However, the military isn't so incompetent that there would be hundreds of incidents, and unreported ones at that. I'm actually fairly certain that the military is required to report incidents like this to the public, so I'm rather disinclined to believe Mr. Arkin's statement regarding the "can neither confirm nor deny" policy and its effect on reporting.

[Angrier and Angrier]

I actually think this is a whole lotta hoopla about nothing. I would assume this kind of thing happens fairly regularly - both intentionally and unintentionally.

[Mike]

It's actually a very big deal, A&A. There's a few things the U.S. Military does NOT mess around with; nukes are one of them. There will be several people who are fired for this, including some pretty senior officers. Nukes have a completely separate set of rules that govern their maintenance and storage, and breaking these rules is one of the quickest ways to kiss a career goodbye.