OOOOPS! This is not funny...

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09-05-2007, 07:50 AM

rickair7777

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OOOOPS! This is not funny...

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/05/loose.nukes/index.html

If somebody had asked me if something like this could happen (in the US) before I read the article I would have said no way.

Anybody want to bet on how long the prison sentance will be? I say 10-15 years...

09-05-2007, 08:55 AM

Sputnik

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Actually I do think it's kind of funny. Having once been in the business of dealing with nukes.....wow. I can only imagine what was going through the mind of the A1C downloading the missiles when he figured out what he was holding.

I bet no prison sentence. Based on what was in the news article, impossible to say exactly what happened. Career ending? Definately, criminal charges? Not necessarily.

09-05-2007, 09:31 AM

ExAF

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Makes One Wonder

Makes one wonder how the 2-man control thing is working/not working. I honestly can't believe they didn't know there were nukes on board. There has to be more to the story. If not, all I can say is WOW! UNBELIEVABLE!

09-05-2007, 10:44 PM

MAGNUM!!

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I agree. The crew likely knew the nukes were onboard and thought they were supposed to be ferrying them to KBAD. Something went wrong here, but I'm sure it's not nearly as sensational as it sounds. I'm curious to find out the real story. Jail time is stupid, let's stop talking about it. Nobody died.

09-06-2007, 12:04 AM

HSLD

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Quote:

Originally Posted by ExAF

Makes one wonder how the 2-man control thing is working/not working.

I thought the two man thing was only to make them melt stuff

One thing for sure, CNN is 100% for finding expert sources that are available to state the obvious:

Quote:

"This is a major gaffe, and it's going to cause some heads to roll down the line," said Don Shepperd, a retired Air Force major general and military analyst for CNN.

But he added, "Any time you have nuclear material on board, if the airplane crashes, nuclear material can be spread in the immediate area of the crash, so you get radioactivity in the immediate area of the crash."

09-06-2007, 03:17 AM

MoosePileit

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Guessing Minot will get a new Wg/CC. Looks like ACC gets a no-fly stand down day. Wonder if that includes the UAVs, bet it does. Guessing the ACMs look the same with or w/o the guts installed, but no expert here, so crew may or may not have had an idea.

Whoa to those caught on a slow news day. Must have been funny to be a paid military "expert" yesterday. Can't believe there were no clips of Slim Pickins riding a B-61 from "Dr Strangelove".

The error chain might make a good study for lots of industries.

If they'd give us another better uniform to buy and wear we'd do better on the job and avoid things like this.....

09-06-2007, 05:16 AM

GunshipGuy

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As a former BUFF guy when Carswell's Bomb Wing was shutting down my crew moved a few AGM-86s (ALCMs) that still had the inards in them. On the AGM-86 you could tell if they had the warhead in them by looking in a small window on the bottom of the missile. I never worked with the ACM, but I would guess they must have a similar feature that allows the crew to check on this rather important detail.