This'll End A Career Or Two

[vfrrider]

As a former Explosives Safety Officer, the nukes SHOULD have been kept in a special storage bunker until signed out (amount, serial number of each device, destination, purpose, who, when, etc.) escorted to the assigned place, loaded under duplicate sets of eyes to assure quality standards, escorted to the plane with BIG RED TAGS indicating loaded, and SPECIAL SYMBOLS indicating nukes so ALL in the area, especially the pilots and crew, knew before they were ever loaded. Once loaded, nuke armed planes are given special taxying and parking spaces for take-off, as well as all fire crews on standby in full CLass 3 gear.

Air corridors on flight plans in  special areas. In short, for this ACCIDENT to happen, about a dozen errors had to be made real bad and everyone would have needed to ignore every warning in the book.

And thats just the sending end, not the receiving end.

Larry
VFRrider

[jerome_oneil]

I was in a Navy F-4 Squadron (VF-33) back in the mid 70's & worked on both the Hangar Deck and Flight Deck of the Independence (CV-62) and Eisenhower (CVN-69).  Although I was a mechanic, during bombing "derbies" and other such activities we'd get assigned to help the "Ordies" haul practice bombs, 500 lb. and 1000 lb. bombs, Sparrows and Sidewinders up to the flight deck and load them onto planes.  I don't recall any special security-related precautions for the conventional stuff.  But for nukes, everthing got shut down tight by the MARDET.  Absolutely no access to the Hangar or Flight Deck for anyone not involved.  

I got out in '93, and that was pretty much the same thing then.   Iron bombs were like "who cares?"  Nukes?  You'd get shot.

[Scratch33]

I remember once we were on the hangar deck waiting for the elevator, standing next to a bomb cart loaded with a 1000 pounder, when a couple Filipinos from the officers mess stopped as they were walking by and asked whether the bomb was dangerous.  

"Aww Hell no dudes, these things are perfectly safe!" said one of my squadronmates, as he turned to the bomb and gave it a swift, vicious kick with his steel toed flight deck boot.  The mess guys freaked out and ran away.
 

[jerome_oneil]

And, just for you Chair Force dudes, the Navy would never lose a nuke like this.    

[Scratch33]

True dat!

[Joey Stalin]

Although the transportation itself doesn't worry me in the slightest (moving nukes around is a relatively safe event), the fact that it happened at all is incredible. The flight crew chief is supposed to know what he's carrying, do his inspection of the plane, and check it against his orders. You can't tell me that he didn't see five big nuclear warheads hanging from his wings. They're marked differently than normal warheads.

[Req]

And the information on what went wrong is beginning to come in...

the has more.

The AGM-129 is designed to carry silver W-80-1 nuclear warheads, which have a variable yield of between 5 and 150 kilotons. (A kiloton is equal to the explosive force of 1,000 tons of TNT.) The warheads were meant to have been removed from the missiles before shipment. In their place, crews were supposed to insert metal dummies of the same size and weight, but a different color, so the missiles could still be properly attached under the bomber's wings.

A munitions custodian officer is supposed to keep track of the nuclear warheads. In the case of cruise missiles, a stamp-size window on the missile's frame allows workers to peer inside to check whether the warheads within are silver. In many cases, a red ribbon or marker attached to the missile serves as an additional warning. Finally, before the missiles are moved, two-man teams are supposed to look at check sheets, bar codes and serial numbers denoting whether the missiles are armed.

Why the warheads were not noticed in this case is not publicly known. But once the missiles were certified as unarmed, a requirement for unique security precautions when nuclear warheads are moved -- such as the presence of specially armed security police, the approval of a senior base commander and a special tracking system -- evaporated.

The trucks hauled the missile pylons from the bunker into the bustle of normal air base traffic, onto Bomber Boulevard and M Street, before turning onto a tarmac apron where the missiles were loaded onto the B-52. The loading took eight hours because of unusual trouble attaching the pylon on the right side of the plane -- the one with the dummy warheads.

By 5:12 p.m., the B-52 was fully loaded. The plane then sat on the tarmac overnight without special guards, protected for 15 hours by only the base's exterior chain-link fence and roving security patrols.

Air Force rules required members of the jet's flight crew to examine all of the missiles and warheads before the plane took off. But in this instance, just one person examined only the six unarmed missiles and inexplicably skipped the armed missiles on the left, according to officials familiar with the probe.

"If they're not expecting a live warhead it may be a very casual thing -- there's no need to set up the security system and play the whole nuclear game," said Vest, the former Minot airman. "As for the air crew, they're bus drivers at this point, as far as they know."

The plane, which had flown to Minot for the mission and was not certified to carry nuclear weapons, departed the next morning for Louisiana. When the bomber landed at Barksdale at 11:23 a.m., the air crew signed out and left for lunch, according to the probe.

It would be another nine hours -- until 8:30 p.m. -- before a Barksdale ground crew turned up at the parked aircraft to begin removing the missiles. At 8:45, 15 minutes into the task, a separate missile transport crew arrived in trucks. One of these airmen noticed something unusual about the missiles. Within an hour, a skeptical supervisor had examined them and ordered them secured.

By then it was 10 p.m., more than 36 hours after the warheads left their secure bunker in Minot.

Worth a read.  This is a system that ought not to have a single point of failure, but it appears that in this case it did.

[LENSMAN]

Define being "let go."  We've also had people "let go" for efficiency or spending reduction or their position becomes obsolete or their given a choice like "leave with this package or go on probation for 3 months at which time we will re-visit your performance" type crap.

In 10 years at this company I've never seen a person fired for incompetence or for screwing up.  And I'm talking about "You're fired.  Clear out your desk and turn in your badge to HR by noon." type scenario.  It seem very difficult to get your ass canned in this day and age of litigation.

We'll see what happens with the people involved with flying nukes around the country and not even knowing it.

In my company (picture the movie Groundhogs Day with Twilight Zone put in for  menace), screw up- move up, as long as you are politically connected.

They must have been new/untrained- how would you otherwise mistake a warhead equipped missile for one that doesn't have a warhead???  

[jerome_oneil]

They must have been new/untrained- how would you otherwise mistake a warhead equipped missile for one that doesn't have a warhead???  

It would appear they simply didn't check once they were on the aircraft.   The nukes were loaded on one side of the thing, and the conventional ones on the other.  They are supposed to validate that the weapons are or are not armed before the flight, and that didn't happen.

There are multiple failure points in this thing.  Someone is gonna get whacked, and whacked hard.

[Scratch33]

Five to be fired for Minot nuclear mistake

By Pauline Jelinek - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Oct 18, 2007 15:17:21 EDT
   
The Air Force is planning to fire at least five officers for an incident in which nuclear-armed missiles were mistakenly loaded on a B-52 bomber and flown across the U.S. — the worst known violation of nuclear security rules in decades.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is scheduled to be briefed Friday on the plan to fire the officers and other results of a six-week Air Force probe into the Aug. 30 incident. No one noticed for hours that the weapons were on the bomber, several Defense Department officials said.

http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2007/10/ap_minot_firings_071018/

[Wilbur]

I think you meant to say "This'll get a person or two promoted"

Hasn't anyone noticed that there's almost zero accountability for incompetence in America anymore?

70 Punished in Accidental B-52 Flight
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071020/D8SCT67O0.html

So much for that theory.

[maddjack]

I still think its intresting that 1) the ground crew could get to live nuclear munitions without any authorization,2 )the aircraft crew never noticed those munitions on the the aircraft,don;t they do a walk around of the aircraft before a peacetime flight anymore?
yes some sacrificial heads are rolling,but is it the tip of a much larger problem with the security of our nukes?

[Wilbur]

I still think its intresting that 1) the ground crew could get to live nuclear munitions without any authorization,2 )the aircraft crew never noticed those munitions on the the aircraft,don;t they do a walk around of the aircraft before a peacetime flight anymore?

That was all covered in the article.

yes some sacrificial heads are rolling,but is it the tip of a much larger problem with the security of our nukes?

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.

That doesn't sound like sacrificial heads to me. About the only thing worse than having the Secretary of Defense and the President of the United States notified of your f'up and relieving you of your command is a stretch at Leavenworth.