Sometimes You Forget
You’re trying to make that plane and you forget what you’re carrying. Happens to a lot of people.
Like the guy Whig wrote about who left the 4-inch folding hunting knife in his backpack and when he went through security they confiscated his pudding.
Then there was Congresscritter John Hostettler [R-IN] who forgot he had a loaded Glock 9mm pistol in his briefcase as he tried to board an airplane in Louisville.
It happens to a lot of people, so why all the furor about Air Force forgetting there were six nuclear warheads on a B-52. People just forgot they were there.
It’s not like every warhead is individually accounted for – well, okay, they are. It’s not like they are clearly marked with color-coded bands – well, okay, they are. It’s not like they have to be stored in separate facilities from all other ordnance – well, okay, they do.
The squadron commander has been fired, as he should have been, but that should be just the beginning.
The weapons system people who mounted the 6 missiles had to know they were nukes. The line chief had to know they were nukes. The crew chief for that bomber had to know they were nukes. The aircraft commander had to know they were nukes. The co-pilot had to know they were nukes.
Every one of those people was suppose to inspect those weapons prior to take-off and signed forms indicating they had. The aircraft commander and co-pilot are supposed to do a walk-around ground inspection before accepting the aircraft from the crew chief. A B-52 crew should be able to spot nukes just casually walking up to the aircraft.
These are people who are sleepwalking through their jobs, and you can’t do that and stay alive if you’re flying. They thought they were on a deadhead [non-operational] run from Minot to Barksdale, and didn’t even make an effort to turn on their brains.
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Is this perhaps a side-effect of the surge and/or Iraqistan altogether? Seems like the DoD is getting more and more desperate to meet its enlistment quotas in the wake of ever-lengthening deployments, and that means lowering the standards. Plus, the really good servicemembers are probably more likely to be deployed, which leaves the dribbles and drabbles at the bottom of the barrel for convoy duty.
Seconding Michael, plus morale being at an all-time low.
But I don’t look for mass firings, however well-deserved. Some poor slob-Joe will have to take the fall.
“It’s not like they are clearly marked with color-coded bands – well, okay, they are.” – Bryan
So should I call them “war resistors”? <grin_duck_run />
I was just dumbfounded by this one. Sleepwalking through the job? or “instructed” to do this by someone higher up the cheney of command? um, chain, yeah, chain, that’s what I meant…
There are no “lower ranks” when it comes to nuclear weapons. The people involved, other than the guys who actually fastened the connections to the aircraft, and the officer flight crew, are all senior NCOs.
These guys have to be totally burned out to make a mistake like this.
I flew in the most classified aircraft in the US inventory and had the highest security clearance that is given, but there is no way I could have even seemed to have been heading towards the B-52s of the bomber patrol on the flight line without attracting a half dozen guards. The Air Force is paranoid about this stuff.
My Dad worked with nukes and you needed badges to get badges for the next level, and two levels out it was by personal recognition – if the guard didn’t know you, you didn’t get in, even if you had a badge.
This is totally unbelievable.
Somebody at Minot must have noticed that the inventory was wrong, probably during a shift change, and set off the alarm. People have no idea how bad a breach of procedure this was, a total failure of a system that has been in place since there has been an Air Force.
These things are physically counted every time there’s a shift change. They didn’t just know that some were missing, they knew the serial numbers on the missing warheads.
It’s time to purge the Air Force’s top level because they have screwed up major league.
Burned out, or just don’t give a shit anymore. Reminds me of the way things went in the last year or so of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, when entire units would basically refuse to go on patrol and when confronted, the soldiers would shrug and say, “what are ya gonna do — send me to Vietnam?”. They just didn’t care. They were just serving out their time waiting until they could get out.
One thing, though. Since the end of the Cold War, bombers don’t fly with nuclear weapons anymore, period. Few of today’s pilots have ever seen a nuclear weapon or would know the significance of the stripe. There is no bomber patrol that goes up with nuclear weapons. So since your Dad’s time, all those procedures may still be on the books, but nobody within living memory has ever used them because (duh) there’s generally no nuclear-tipped weapons anywhere near a B-52. So it may indeed simply be a procedural breakdown caused by the fact that having a nuclear weapon anywhere near a B-52 nowdays is an event as rare as a competent Bush Administration official. Still, if so, it’s a rather disturbing one.
Larry Johnson says:
“Did someone at Barksdale try to indirectly warn the American people that the Bush Administration is staging nukes for Iran? “
I think perhaps he hadn’t eaten his meat, and that’s why they took his pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?
So do you think this was a deliberate accident, Bryan?
Building a wall, Whig?
Someone had to withdraw those warheads from a nuclear storage bunker. You don’t just walk in and take them off a shelf. The bunkers are designed to contained a leak, so they aren’t the normal ordnance bunkers, and everything involving nukes required two people, i.e. two signatures issuing and two signatures receiving the warheads. The warheads had to be fitted to the missiles. The missiles are stored in a separate bunker without warheads of any kind. The mission determines the type of warhead required.
Someone had to sign for the missiles, someone hand to sign for the assembled product, someone had to issue the aircraft arming order to get the process started. “The plane can’t take off until the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the aircraft.” There’s a hell of lot of paperwork involved. A lot of it is waived in a war zone, but none of it is waived state-side.
There is another bit of weirdness – they announced that a squadron commander was relieved of duty. The investigation just started and he probably would have been relieved anyway, but this is uncharacteristically early to do it.
As you say, Badtux, they don’t normally fit nukes these days, which makes an accident scenario harder to sell. I have to wonder if there isn’t a colonel at Minot under psychiatric care right now.
Or, there was an attempt to cause some “terrorist” action (all them loose nukes after the fall of Russia and all) in Iraq that could be pinned on Iran, letting Cheney talk Bush into bombing Iran.
Hey, were talking the Bushies now. They’d certainly dream up some dumb stuff like this. They used just a dumb stuff to invade Iraq.
I know, Rook. [You’re going to force me to register, aren’t you?]
I’m trying to avoid the stainless steel colander™, but it’s getting harder every day.
I finally bought a stainless steel colander™ this week, ostensibly to replace my ancient plastic colander that broke last week.
Of course I put it on my head right away. You should see me; I look great in it. And yes, these days, it’s hard not to accept the implications and believe one needs the colander… on one’s head, not under the spaghetti.
The problem with the military in peace time is that the politicians rise to the top of the officer corps, and when you go to war they are still in charge. The military high command is corrupt, through and through, and it is getting people killed.
i’m toast. my plastic colander melted onto my head and i forgot to top it off with a stainless steel colander™ before the plastic hardened.
So the bottom line is either America has a problem with “loose nukes” itself, or is planning a terrorist event to blame on someone else.
Are those the only two options?
Either way the IAEA ought to be very interested.
i’m betting on a third option: bush thinks he’s truman re-incarnated.
Bryan, was the station commander called Bat Guano by any chance? It begars belief that this could ahve happend. If there had been an accident the scenario probably would have been similar to what happened at Palomares in the 60s (is that a correct assumption?). leakage of radioactive material over a large area but no detonation. The consequences don’t bear thinking about.
Yes, Bryan, I am. Because I register here.
Whig – It was a violation of a post-Soviet nuclear disarmament treaty to take off with the nukes on board. Neither side is supposed to be flying with nuclear weapons, which makes the mating of nuclear warheads to airborne cruise missiles even more suspicious. There is a major failure in the system.
Hipparchia – bush thinks? He deludes, he believes, but I haven’t noticed that he thinks.
Jams – that’s what happens to nukes, the explosive trigger may detonate cracking the case and leaking the nuclear core, but critical mass is prevented. It becomes a radioactive decontamination problem. Hell, I not very happy that the current Air Force chief of staff is named “Buzz,” or that so many senior officers are Christianists. It is not a comfortable situation.
What’s the penalty for the treaty violation? There must be specific provisions, right?
[…] Bryan @ WhyNow? first alerted me to this story: WASHINGTON (CNN) — Six nuclear warheads on cruise missiles […]
Probably a strongly worded note, or Putin’s Tu-95s will start carrying nukes on their forays around the world. It’s not like the Hedgemony has a concern for complying with treaties.