B-52 At Minot Airforce Base Accidentally Armed With Nukes
The US Air Force has launched an investigation after a B-52 bomber flew across the US last week mistakenly loaded with nuclear-armed missiles.
It follows reports in the Army Times that five missiles were unaccounted for during the three-hour flight from North Dakota to Louisiana.
The air force said the cruise missiles were safe at all times.
Army Times said the missiles were to be decommissioned but were mistakenly mounted on the bomber’s wings.
The W80-1 warhead has a yield of five to 150 kilotons, the paper said.
Johnathan thinks that if these planes had been on bombing practice a lot of people might have been killed. I think that’s probably an overreaction. For one thing, I believe (but I’m no expert so correct me if I’m wrong) nuclear weapons have to be activated before they can be blown up. If you just drop an unactivated nuke it’d just hit the ground.
Plus, I don’t believe they practice bombing by actually dropping bombs in North Dakota. I think the practice bombing ranges are all in other parts of the country. So this mistake was more of a proliferation threat than anything.
Regardless, an embarrassing mistake to be sure.
