'Chain of errors' led to 36-hour US nuclear blunder

[Kalevalatar]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2993312.ece

Nuclear warheads capable of unleashing the equivalent of 10 Hiroshima bombs were mistakenly flown across the United States by a bomber crew who thought they were dummies, and the terrifying security lapse was not discovered for almost 36 hours, it has been revealed.

The flight, on 30 August, was kept secret by the US Air Force, until news leaked on to military websites a week later. The Washington Post yesterday catalogued the full chain of errors and oversights and revealed that some of America's most powerful nuclear weapons were in effect out of supervision for almost 36 hours.

Looks like the United States of America has a far more serious problem than some Iranian nuclear power programme on the far side of the world. What would it have taken for a terrorist to blow up this plane right inside the United States of America?

 

[christianchris21]

the nukes would never gone off. they would have to have been unlocked before take off and got the correct code from the prez. there is also other security that im not able to disclose

 

[Thirst_For_Knowledge]

the nukes would never gone off. they would have to have been unlocked before take off and got the correct code from the prez. there is also other security that im not able to disclose

Would they kill you?

 

[Kalevalatar]

the nukes would never gone off. they would have to have been unlocked before take off and got the correct code from the prez. there is also other security that im not able to disclose

Really? Over at the Military Times they seem to be able to discuss these other "security" (after what took place here, clearly not so secure) measures in detail.

It's not that the nukes would have detonated by themselves. There are a whole host of worrysome implications here. For one thing, the supposition was that the United States of America knows where its nukes are at all times. Now that we know this is not the case, it raises the question, are there other nuclear weapons also missing and unaccounted for, nukes that are not safely stored at the base where the records say they are. Presidential launch codes are quite useless if the nukes are not where they are supposed to be, i.e. the nukes are beyond the authorized command and control.

Fail-safe devices or not, when safeguards fail like in this case, these weapons are still vulnerable to physical damage, accidental or intentional, which would effectively create that dirty bomb image the White House used to scare the public in the name of nuclear non-proliferation. The fissile material is there and it can be stolen and re-used to make a whole new bomb, and I doubt such bomb would need the "Gold Codes" before it could be detonated.

 

[Billnew]

exactly.
Every safe guard is a part of the protection.
Even when one is bypassed, it is serious.

This one passed alot of safe guards. I wonder if the
nukes were properly guarded, since the recieving facility
didn't know what the munitions were. And they even began loading the munitions onto the wings.

 

[wiggsfly]

This kinda goes along with the sleeping guards at the nuclear power station yesterday...

 

[christianchris21]

granted, i too am conserned by these events