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Oopsie!
By John
"Hey, so.... does anyone know why these bombs are warm?"
Nuclear warheads mistakenly flown on B-52, landing at Barksdale AFB -
A B-52 bomber mistakenly loaded with five nuclear warheads flew from Minot Air Force Base, N.D, to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on Aug. 30, resulting in an Air Force-wide investigation, according to three officers who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the incident.The B-52 was loaded with Advanced Cruise Missiles, part of a Defense Department effort to decommission 400 of the ACMs. But the nuclear warheads should have been removed at Minot before being transported to Barksdale, the officers said. The missiles were mounted onto the pylons of the bomber’s wings.
Advanced Cruise Missiles carry a W80-1 warhead with a yield of 5 to 150 kilotons and are specifically designed for delivery by B-52 strategic bombers.Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Ed Thomas said the transfer was safely conducted and the weapons were in Air Force custody and control at all times.
However, the mistake was not discovered until the B-52 landed at Barskdale, which left the warheads unaccounted for during the approximately 3-1/2 hour flight between the two bases, the officers said.
Today would be just a super time to go over nuclear incident terminology.
Dull Sword - minor incident involving nukes. Convoy breaks down or something mundane like that....
Bent Spear - DoD directive 5230.16 says "Any nuclear weapon significant incidents other than nuclear weapons accidents or war risk detonations, actual or possible."
Broken Arrow - nuclear accident that results in a radioactive yield, but doesn't risk nuclear war.
Nucflash - Bad News Bears!!! Bomb went off!
Empty Quiver - is what that crappy movie with John Travolta and Christian Slater should have been called. Means someone took off with a bomb.
Shooting from the hip here, but I'm thinking the B-52 incident would be a Bent Spear.
Meanwhile, I like Lex's take.
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Comments
Hey, what's a few nukes between friends?
Actually in the movie Broken Arrow, one of the nukes does get detonated inside the mine. So Broken Arrow would be correct.
That'd be a Pinnacle Empty Quiver, followed by a Nucflash.
Remember when, not so long ago, they could have had a headline, "Nuclear warheads deliberately flown on B-52, landing at Barksdale AFB" - about 3 or 4 times a day?
Thank you, SGT Jeff, for pointing out something the media is happy to ignore. NUCLEAR WARHEADS FLOWN OVER MAJOR U.S. CITIES is in six inch print, as if this didn't happen every frigging day for a few decades. With fewer safety controls, at that.
On the other hand, there's all sorts of creative thinking on the moonbat channels about how this was actually part of a run-up to nookler combat toe-ta-toe with the Eye-rainians.
Definitely an empty quiver.
Empty quiver refers to weapons that have been stolen, misplaced, or are otherwise unaccounted for.
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Besides missing Fred Thompson's candidacy announcement, I wish I hadn't missed Leno last night.
He must have had a field day with this one.