B-52 At Minot Airforce Base Accidentally Armed With Nukes

If this happens in America, I wonder how many corresponding events in Russia could have occurred, where the weapons actually stayed missing.

As far as nuclear weapons are concerned, I agree with Einstein. It is worse than giving children matches to play with in a pool of gasoline.

Dropping bombs on North Dakota?

Wonder what the results of that would be?

Two-headed cows and other mutant livestock.

Yeah, Spartan, no kidding. Odd that your comment evoked a comic-relief laugh from my gut.

Brian, if that were to happen in ND, based on past behavior, I'd suggest that Cheney would say, "Hey, see I told you Saddam had WMD. Let's go bomb the hell out of Pakistan, Syria, China, Russia, Iran... even Denmark, for crying out loud..." All those dominoes. Then we'll not even have those rocks to throw that Spartan described, since they'll all be radioactively hot.

F*****G unbelievable! Speaking as a retired Navy officer with some experience around nukes (having slept during an aggregate of 2 1/2 years within a hundred feet of several hundred on a ballistic missile submarine) I can tell you definitively, NOBODY does ANYTHING "by mistake" where nuclear weapons are concerned. Whoever is responsible for this should be shot (literally). It's a good thing Osama bin Laden didn't show up at the gate driving a panel truck, asking for it to be loaded up with a couple of dozen of these things. They probably would have complied with his request and sent him on his way with a friendly "Have a nice day!" Be afraid, people, be VERY, VERY afraid.

regardless of being 'activated' the warheads still carry conventional explosives that are used to 'initiate' the nuclear reaction. had they fallen with force, on impact those explosives could have sent radioactive material into the air (what people now like to call a 'dirty bomb')... also, I didn't realize that b-52's had weapons 'loaded on its wings' ... The B-52 is famous for the carpet bombing in Vietnam, that is, it has bombs loaded in its bomb bay in the fuselage. it might have some hardpoints on its wing for air to air defensive missiles... if nuclear bombs were loaded on wing hardpoints that really would be messed up... not entirely sure about that, but that is my current understanding...
either way, it's a very messed up situation...
could it be that the military is so badly stretched that such 'mistakes' are more likely to happen...?

Paul and David summed it up best. I do know that B-52's did indeed carry air to surface missiles mounted under their wings. But like Paul said, this is a F**k up of Biblical proportions. Many heads will roll over this one. Just another example of how incompetency rolls down hill.

I saw a picture in the paper with the cruise missiles slung under the wing of a b-52... so there's that... thank you Devin for that correction as well...
very messed up...

If a nuke blew up in North Dakota,
Minnesota and Wisconsin would
probably get some of the fallout,
depending on what the weather
conditions were at the time.

"Two-headed cows and other mutant livestock"....? Let me tell you something, Brian. During the 1950's, the radiation fallout that found it's was out of Nevada (from the above-ground testing there) came down across the Great Plains area of our country. The levels of strontium-90 were (and continue to be) the highest IN THE WORLD in North Dakota.

I was raised in Minot, North Dakota. During the mid-to-late 50's we drank powdered milk. We could not drink milk from our cows. The "Mandan Milk Mystery" is still being studied. Animals were slaughtered and burned. Fields were plowed under or burned. Butter was a pound of oleo margarine made yellow with food coloring. Just about everything we ate came out of a can, not our gardens. My mother gave birth to a still-born child with spina bifida in 1957; as did an alarming number of other women in this sparsely populated state.

22 different types of cancer rose up from the poisoned Earth following those years. Child mortality, birth defects, thyroid cancer and leukemia were the early side effects. Muscular sclerosis and breast cancer waited until the late 80's to appear. The crap that fell out of North Dakota's clear blue skies poisoned the ground water. I have personally witnessed the burial of 8 of my closest high school girl friends. Several more have survived breast cancer, two are in wheel chairs with MS, and five have children that require constant care.

"If a nuke blew up in North Dakota,
Minnesota and Wisconsin would
probably get some of the fallout,
depending on what the weather
conditions were at the time."
Brian S, Sep 6, 2007, 7:57pm EDT

You'd better believe it would, Brian. Across the Great Plains - and especially across the state of North Dakota - the wind never stops.

Am I in fear of moving nuclear weapons across the country? No. The warheads that are currently in the news were not armed. I fear the idiots in Washington that would even CONSIDER building or using these devastating devices.

I like your perspective on this situation. I believe too, that it is mostly a proliferation threat than anything. Of course, the implications that nuclear weapons were loaded without the proper steps taken, mean that there needs to be a serious look at how things are being accomplished on the flight line there in Minot.

I read that the squad leader responsible for the loading has been relieved of duty, and several other technicians were de-certified on nuclear weapon handling. That's no little thing. That can drastically alter their career.

Uh, maybe you all better take a look at this:

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977110024