B-52 with nuke-armed missiles flies across US

[raihans]

B-52 with nuke-armed missiles flies across US
Published Date: September 06, 2007

WASHINGTON: 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, US military officials said yestreday. 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, said a military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The US Air Force has relieved the munitions squadron commander at Minot Air Base in North Dakota of his duties, and launched an intensive investigation into the incident, a spokesman said. "At no time was there a threat to public safety," said Lieutenant Colonel Ed Thomas. "It is important to note that munitions were safe, secure and under military control at all times."

The Pentagon would not provide specifics, citing secrecy rules, but an expert said the incident was unprecedented and pointed to a disturbing lapse in the air force's command and control system. "All evidence we have seen so far points to an isolated mistake," Thomas said. "The error was discovered by airmen during internal Air Force checks." The Air Force's air combat command "has directed a command-wide stand down to review process at all of our bases."

"The munitions squadron commander has been relieved of his duties, and final action is pending the outcome of the investigation," he said. "In addition, other airmen were decertified from their duties involving munitions." An air force official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said six cruise missiles with nuclear warheads were loaded on pylons under the wings of a B-52 bomber that flew from Minot to Barksdale on August 30.

Hans Kristensen, an expert on US nuclear forces, said he knew of no other publicly acknowledged case of live nuclear weapons being flown on bombers since the late 1960s. "It seems so fantastic that so many points, checks can dysfunction," he said. "And we have so many points and checks specifically so we don't have these kinds of incidents." Kristensen 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.

He said there would be checks and detailed procedures at various points from the time they are moved out of bunkers until they are loaded onto planes, and flown away. "That's perhaps what is most worrisome about this particular incident is that apparently an individual who had command authority about moving these weapons around decided to so," he said. "The question is did he just plug in the information that he was moving these to Barksdale, or something else. Who knows? So 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."

Ike Skelton, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that the reports that nuclear weapons were mishandled "are deeply disturbing". "The American people, our friends, and our potential adversaries must be confident that the highest standards are in place when it comes to our nuclear arsenal," he said. The weapons were among 400 advanced cruise missiles that the Defense Department quietly decided to retire in March over the course of this year.

The advanced cruise missile is a stealthy, longer range version of the air launched cruise missile first deployed in the early 1980s. They carry W-80 warheads of up to 150 kilotons, ten times the destructive force of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Nuclear weapons are normally transferred on cargo planes, never on the wings of bombers, Kristensen said. Bomber flights with live nuclear weapons were ended in the late 1960s after accidents in Spain in 1966 and in Greenland in 1968.

The military official said the discovery was reported to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, "and higher." The official said the notification goes as high as the president. "There are procedures in place and they kicked in and worked," the official said. - AFP



http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.ph ... U1ODIyNTgw

[malpensa26]

Im thinkin it was a dry run. the white house wanna see if anyone can catch them. they will probably do it again drop a couple in arizona desert where no one lives then blame iran so they can nuke their army and bush can ride off in the sunset in oct 2008

[Moin]

As long as our forces here don't try any such stunts. Knowing them, they could end up dropping one of them.

[Abbas Ali]

Some incidents from the past where USAF aircraft crashed while carrying nuclear bombs.

A B-36 was traveling from Alaska to Texas. It developed mechanical problems. The problems got so bad that the crew had to bail out. Unfortunately the plane was carrying a test nuke. The explosive material detonated, not the nuke, over the coast of British Columbia. This is listed as the world's first nuclear accident. This accident was said to have taken place in January, 1950.

Also in 1950 it is said that a B-36 was forced to jettison it's nuclear bomb into the Pacific Ocean where it still remains today.

Forty five years ago a B-47 was flying with a nuclear weapon off the coast of South Carolina, USA. The location is disputed, some say it was off the coast of Georgia and others say North Carolina. The copilot went back to the weapon to install a pin. The pin was necessary for the release mechanism to work. It wouldn't go in. He radioed back to the base and he was advised to jiggle the release mechanism to align the parts so the pin would fit in. When the copilot did this, the weapon dropped out of the plane into the ocean and was lost.

In 1956 a B-47 crashed into the Mediterranean Sea. The plane was carrying to canisters of nuclear material.

In 1957 a C-124 was forced to jettison two nuclear weapons into the Atlantic Ocean. These weapons remain lost.

In 1961 a very scary thing happened. A B-52 was carrying two 20 megaton nuclear bombs. The plane crashed and five of the six safeties on the bomb failed. The crash occurred near Goldsboro, North Carolina. One bomb was lost. The government states that it never had a bomb larger than 15 megatons.

These are only a few of our loses by plane, but bombs are not the only types of nukes that were lost. We have lost nuclear reactors when submarines sunk and also nuclear torpedoes.

Source: U.S. Lost Nukes And Nuclear Accidents

[raihans]

70 punished in accidental B-52 flight

By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 27 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - The Air Force said Friday it has punished 70 airmen involved in the accidental, cross-country flight of a nuclear-armed B-52 bomber following an investigation that found widespread disregard for the rules on handling such munitions.

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"There has been an erosion of adherence to weapons-handling standards at Minot Air Force Base and Barksdale Air Force Base," said Maj. Gen. Richard Newton, the Air Force deputy chief of staff for operations.

Newton was announcing the results of a six-week probe into the Aug. 29-30 incident in which the B-52 was inadvertently armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and flown from Minot in North Dakota to Barksdale in Louisiana without anyone noticing the mistake for more than a day.

The missiles were supposed to be taken to Louisiana, but the warheads were supposed to have been removed beforehand.

A main reason for the error was that crews had decided not to follow a complex schedule under which the status of the missiles is tracked while they are disarmed, loaded, moved and so on, one official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.

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."

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., chairwoman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, said she believed the Air Force had done a thorough investigation, but the findings were "a warning sign that there has been degradation" of attitudes toward the handling of the weapons.

"These are not just rules that people dreamed up ... just so they could check off the boxes," she said. "This is fundamentally important to the security of the country and the world."

Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists was among those skeptical that the August flight represented an isolated incident.

He said a decline in Air Force standards for nuclear weapons maintenance and security was documented by the government a decade ago. In recent years, he said, Minot and Barksdale have both gotten poor marks during inspections routinely required for certification.

"Part of the reason is that after the end of the Cold War, and the disappearance of the Soviet nuclear threat, the nuclear career was not very sexy — it was not the way to go if you wanted to" advance in the military. A shortage of people with the right skills, training and mentality followed, something the Air Force has worked to improve, he said.

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 ranked among those punished were 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.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071020/ap_ ... ar_mistake

Air Combat Command: http://www.acc.af.mil