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Air Force Bloopers…

By Brian | September 5, 2007 | Share on Facebook

This can’t be good:

A B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear warheads and flown for more than three hours across several states last week, prompting an Air Force investigation and the firing of one commander, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

The plane was carrying Advanced Cruise Missiles from Minot Air Force Base, N.D, to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on Aug. 30, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a Defense Department policy not to confirm information on nuclear weapons.

The missiles, which are being decommissioned, were mounted onto pylons on the bomber’s wings and it is unclear why the warheads had not been removed beforehand.

So basically what we have here is, “You mean those things are armed?!?”

President Bush and Defense Secretary Gates were informed of the incident and provided daily briefings, the munitions squad commander is now unemployed, and the crews involved have been “temporarily decertified for handling munitions.”

But here’s my favorite quote:

“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-chair of the House task force on nonproliferation.

So it seems that the people who screwed up last week have also been wrong for decades about whether such a thing could occur in the first place. Makes you wonder what else they claim it’s impossible to do with a nuclear weapon…

Topics: Random Acts of Blogging | 2 Comments »

2 Responses to “Air Force Bloopers…”

  1. jason says at September 5th, 2007 at 8:08 pm :
    Well, this is all terribly reassuring. Why do I keep seeing scenes from Dr. Strangelove in my mind?

  2. Jeff Porten says at September 6th, 2007 at 5:27 pm :
    Hell, Brian, I feel like I’ve been telling you about stuff like this for 20 years. The only surprise here is that they didn’t manage to quote “national security” as a reason for us to never know about it — that’s the much more common reaction.

    Hey, if you ever want to know why I think terrorism is no big deal, but nukes still scare the hell out of me, bring it up over dinner sometime. I promise to have you scared spitless by dessert.