Oops!

[giza]

Central Command: Blue Bird C451, this is central, do you copy.
C541: Copy, over.
Central Command: We have good news and bad news for you, over.
C541: Ready to reciev orders, over.
Central Command: Good news is you're going to be famous. Now your payload..
C541: Yes Sir.
Central Command: Can you verify your current payload?
C541: Kidney beans and tomatoes sir, over.
[Muffled laughter, static]
Central Command: Actually, those are nuclear warheads on your left wing, lieutenant.
C541: Spicy kidney beans? Over.

Source: Slashdot

I'm told that the real issue here wasn't the actual danger that the nukes presented (they were not armed, and arming them would have non-trivial to do), but rather that the Air Force takes its nukes, and the tracking of them very seriously. The fact that they had paperwork saying that those nukes were on the ground, when in reality they were being flown across the country is regarded as a huge screwup, and as the article stated, heads are indeed going to roll.

Comments

[drzarron.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the issue was never that anyone was in danger of accidentally getting nuked, the arming relays weren't even in the same state. The issue was that A] an order could go so wrong that would cause them to be mounted on an aircraft completely unrelated to their mission and B] That no one knew it. The issue of losing track of six nuclear devices is VERY disturbing.

[giza.livejournal.com]

Someone pointed out on Slashdot that it is entirely possible that the ground crew did not know what they were loading, for security reasons. They might have had a crate (or whatever) that merely had a tracking number on it, and a Plane ID# to be loaded onto.

[taral.livejournal.com]

No, the problem is that we have a treaty that we will not put nukes airborne. Welcome to Treaty Violation, population YOU.

[giza.livejournal.com]

That too.

Then again, it's not like we've been following international law lately. :-/