Air Force Pilots fired for flying with nukes onboard

[Reaper]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20427730/?GT1=10357

 

According to this article, a pilot and a few crew members were fired for carrying nukes in their B-52 bomber over several states.

 

They were supposed to remove the bombs before hand, but they did not and they flew off. As it turns out, nobody knew why they were mounted in the first place, especially since

 

The missiles' date=' which are being decommissioned, were mounted onto pylons on the bomber’s wings and it is unclear why the warheads had not been removed beforehand.

[/quote']

 

In addition, the person they interviewed stayed anonymous because the Pentagon didn't want to confirm info on the nukes.

 

So, apparently there are still bombs flying over us to this day, even though they are supposedly being decomissioned.

[Sisyphus]

How the hell do you accidentally load a nuclear weapon? Something fishy is going on. My guess is that the public just wasn't supposed to know about it, and the claim that "nobody knew why they were mounted in the first place" is B.S.

[insane_alien]

i know that governments have a certain skill at 'accidents' but i thought they would be a tiny bit more careful about some nukes. especially with they're FUD about terrorists being EVERYWHERE.

[Pangloss]

I think I need to correct something from the first post of this thread: I don't believe the pilots have been fired. Pilots do not load munitions onto military aircraft. They're actually not qualified to do it -- they wouldn't know what to look for (most munitions look more or less alike from the outside -- that's by design, and these advanced cruise missiles look exactly like the same model without nuclear warheads).

 

From the article:

 

In addition to the munitions squadron commander who was relieved of his duties, crews involved with the mistaken load — including ground crew workers — have been temporarily decertified for handling munitions, one official said.

 

I can definitely understand why someone might think that that means that the pilots were relieved of duty, but I believe the article is actually referring to ground crews. Plus the squadron commander, of course, who is most certainly a pilot, but he's also in charge of the ground crews.

 

But if someone hears otherwise (that the pilots specifically have been relieved) please reply accordingly -- I'd be interested in hearing it. I don't mean this as a criticism of the OP, by the way -- I follow aviation matters, just as a hobby, so it's a significant distinction to me. The far more important question, of course, is why this happened and what can be done to stop it from happening again.

[Genecks]

The United States military is like a mob. It tries to keep things quiet, and if things are exposed, cover them up with lies. It's all about national security, and someone screwed up. Otherwise, it's about social engineering and the current political scheme people are trying to blind commoners with.

[Pangloss]

Maybe, but we didn't invent the Mafia.

 

We certainly invented the modern conspiracy theory, though. And honed it to a fine art.