Forum: Military Aircraft of the Cold War

B-52 carried nuclear armed cruise missiles by mistake

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A B-52 bomber flew the length of the United States last week mistakenly loaded with as many as six nuclear armed cruise missiles last week, a US military official confirmed Wednesday.

The mix-up was reported to President George W. Bush after the nuclear warheads were discovered when the aircraft landed at Barksdale Air Force Base Louisiana, the official said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said as many as six cruise missiles loaded on to the plane were found to have nuclear warheads on them by mistake.

The B-52 was flying from Minot Air Base in North Dakota.

The incident was first reported by Military Times newspapers, which said the air launched cruise missiles can carry nuclear warheads of five to 150 kilotons.

The 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.

Source: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hpa ... Yfct_p5YTe

Send Lawyers, guns and money - the S**T HAS HIT THE FAN!

Sep 6 2007 11:41PM
KXMCTV Minot
They thought it was a joke message - sent accidentally.

That was the reaction of some officers in the Pentagon when they received what's called a "bent spear" message last week.

Jim Olson has more on that...

"Bent Spear" is the term reserved for significant nuclear weapons incidents and the message sent out last Thursday was real - alerting them of the fact that Minot Air Force Base munitions crews could not account for six nuclear warheads.

Those bombs had been mistakenly left attached to cruise missiles that were loaded onto the wings of a B-52 bomber and flown across the country to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

But even after the three-and-a-half hour flight, it wasn't until much later that the warheads were finally secured and removed from the bomber.

Air Force Major General Daniel Darnell reported on the timeline of the incident to Congress yesterday.

Sources in Congress say the timeline shows the six nuclear warheads were not retrieved or even identified as being nuclear munitions for almost ten hours after their arrival at Barksdale.

Sources in the Air Force say it took that long because the airmen who first discovered the bombs could not believe what they were seeing and had a hard time convincing superiors that the missiles on the bomber were, in fact, carrying nuclear weapons.

The incident has led the Air Force to relieve the commander of the 5th Munitions Wing at Minot Air Force Base of his duties.

According to records from the Air Force, the commander's name is Lieutenant Colonel Paul Wheeless.

It looks like EVERYBODY missed the cruise missiles on those pylons. As I understand, the ALCM with nuclear tips look VERY different from the standard cruise missile. The article posted also stated that special weapons are always transported by airlift aircraft and never bombers. Why didn`t somebody call "WTF?"
It seems a lot of folk were asleep that day, even worse, procedure and protocol was completely ignored by key people, a little worrying to say the least.

Although there was no real danger, this certainly damages the reputation of the USAF which has an excellent record in terms of safety/handling/tracking of these weapons. Is it unusual for this to be made public?