Wasn't there a fighter with a nuke that went down off the coast of Spain about thirty years ago?

Tom W

Right, why would anyone be intelligent or caring?

699? Is this right?

I don't remember ever having heard of the ones in Colorado either.

:freak: :dizzy2: :freak:

Oh yeah. Nevada is the most bombed place on the planet.

To have "heard" the last shot in Colorado, you'd need to be at least 30something. FWIW, the shots in Colorado and New Mexico were part of Project Plowshare, which spanned about 12 years (1961-1973).

They were:
Gnome
10 December 1961
Carlsbad, New Mexico

Gasbuggy
10 December 1967
Farmington, New Mexico

Rulison
10 September 1969
Grand Valley, Colorado

Rio Blanco
17 May 1973
Rifle, Colorado

B 52s fly with nukes a lot, it was unfortunate that this SNAFU was made public. We don't need the world knowing we occasionally mess up. USAF nuke security dropped the ball on this one, although they never left USAF chain of custody.

The Wake-Up Flight of a Wayward B-52
NYT
Published: February 15, 2008

A B-52 bomber took off from an Air Force base in North Dakota in August and — in a startling mistake attributed to post-cold war operational complacency — carried six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles on a 1,400-mile flight to a base in Louisiana. The missile tips should have been dummies, but somehow actual nuclear warheads were loaded for the cross-country trip. “No one knew where they were, or even missed them, for over 36 hours,” said Senator Carl Levin in a hearing this week into preventing such a dangerous mix-up from ever happening again.

The Air Force, which demoted and disciplined dozens, stressed that the missiles were not primed for actual use and could not have caused nuclear havoc. But anxious lawmakers discovered a deeper problem — a “precipitous” decrease in military vigilance over the nation’s missile arsenal. This was the stark conclusion of a special Pentagon task force that recommended appointment of an assistant secretary of defense whose sole mission would be to manage the Pentagon’s nuclear programs and restore operational acuteness.

A culture of laxity “too extreme to be tolerated” has evolved among the nuclear weapon corps, according to the findings by the task force experts from the Defense Science Board. During the cold war, when the nation’s nuclear arsenal was kept honed on daily alert, it was managed by high-ranking senior officers and civilian specialists. But that responsibility has since slipped down the chain of command to Air Force colonels, Navy captains and civilians, the study found. Inevitably, the perception has grown that careers in the nuclear forces are less prized in the current era of conventional warfare than other careers.

The Pentagon should, without hesitation, reverse this dangerous perception by appointing the ranking watchdog plus a flag officer in each of the services to the sole task of keeping the missiles secure, as the study recommends. The laxity on the home front uncovered by the dodgy B-52 flight presents the same kind of nuclear risk once epitomized by the cold war.

"We'll take care of EVERYthing. We're the United States Government!"

Okay, I'm sleeping better at night already! . . . .

http://www.thebulletin.org/columns/hugh-gusterson/20080205.html

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN, JANUARY 25--At a press conference in Islamabad today, Pakistani Brig. Gen. Atta M. Iqhman expressed concern about U.S. procedures for handling nuclear weapons. Iqhman, who oversees the safety and security of the Pakistani nuclear force, said that U.S. protocols for storing and handling nuclear weapons are inadequate. "In Pakistan, we store nuclear warheads separately from their delivery systems, and a nuclear warhead can only be activated if three separate officers agree," Iqhman said. "In the United States, almost 20 years after the end of the Cold War, nuclear weapons still sit atop missiles, on hair-trigger alert, and it only takes two launch-control officers to activate a nuclear weapon. The U.S. government has persistently ignored arms control experts around the world who have said they should at least de-alert their weapons."

Like JD stated in post #3. It violated a treaty.
Someone needs to be held responsible for that error.

But as far as everyone thinking that the Air Force screwed up, and we were in danger:

I think if the people of this country had any idea of what’s flying through their towns in the tank cars of freight trains every day, they’d not give a damn about a few nuclear weapons flying overhead that had no chance of going off no matter what happens to the flight.

can't argue with that.

Screw them I don't want Pakistans military advice. I suspect our military wants to hear it even less.

:eek:
Tom,

You are correct....
We drop 'em wherever....
Broken Arrow :eek::eek:
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa081600b.htm

Then there was this one about another miscue in Greenland in 1968.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/28/newsid_2506000/2506207.stm

Raindrops keep fallin on my head....:rolleyes:

Plan R
 

Ya'll gotta stop worrying and learn to love the Bomb.
:D
http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...ow97/PlanR.jpg