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| 70 Punished in Accidental B-52 Flight |
| 2007-10-20 |
| WASHINGTON (AP) - The Air Force said Friday it would punish 70 airmen involved in the accidental, cross-country flight of a nuclear-armed B-52 bomber following an investigation that found widespread disregard for the rules on handling such munitions. "There has been an erosion of adherence to weapons-handling standards at Minot Air Force Base and Barksdale Air Force Base," said Maj. Gen. Richard Newton, the Air Force deputy chief of staff for operations. Newton was announcing the results of a six-week probe into the Aug. 29-30 incident in which the B-52 was inadvertently armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and flown from Minot in North Dakota to Barksdale in Louisiana without anyone noticing the mistake for more than a day. The missiles were supposed to be taken to Louisiana, but the warheads were supposed to have been removed beforehand. A main reason for the error was that crews had decided not to follow a complex schedule under which the status of the missiles is tracked while they are disarmed, loaded, moved and so on, one official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. The airmen replaced the schedule with their own "informal" system, he said, though he didn't say why they did that nor how long they had been doing it their own way. "This was an unacceptable mistake and a clear deviation from our exacting standards," Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne said at a Pentagon press conference with Newton. "We hold ourselves accountable to the American people and want to ensure proper corrective action has been taken." Newton acknowledged that the Air Force needs to "restore the confidence" lost among the American people after the August incident, which raised questions about the safety of the country's nuclear arsenal. "We are making all appropriate changes to ensure this has a minimal chance of ever happening again," Wynne said. Highest among those to be punished are four officers who were relieved this week of their commands, including the 5th Bomb Wing commander at Minot - Col. Bruce Emig, who also has been the base commander since June. In addition, the wing has been "decertified from its wartime mission," Newton said. Some 65 airmen have been decertified from handling nuclear weapons. The certification process looks at a person's psychological profile, any medications they are taking and other factors in determining a person's reliability to handle weapons. Wynne prefaced his remarks about the B-52 incident by saying that, in publicly confirming that nuclear weapons were involved, he had authorized a one-time exception to U.S. policy, which states that the location of nuclear weapons will never be confirmed publicly. He said he made this exception because of the seriousness of the episode and its importance to the nation. The weapon involved was the Advanced Cruise Missile, a "stealth" weapon developed in the 1980s with the ability to evade detection by Soviet radar. The Air Force said in March that it had decided to retire the Advanced Cruise Missile fleet soon, and officials said after the breach that the missiles were being flown to Barksdale for decommissioning. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #8 RJ, note that the Wing Commander of the 5th Bomb Wing is the first to go. The Air Force has had a rule since there have been nukes that NO ONE will ever be alone with one, that is there will always be at least TWO qualified personnel around a nuke. That rule is hammered into everyone who ever sees a nuke up close and personal. Anyone, no matter what rank, who violates that rule is toast. As for officers, you can bet that every squadron and flight commander even remotely associated with this is looking for civilian employment. A main reason for the error was that crews had decided not to follow a complex schedule under which the status of the missiles is tracked while they are disarmed, loaded, moved and so on, one official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. The airmen replaced the schedule with their own "informal" system, he said, though he didn't say why they did that nor how long they had been doing it their own way. I can't begin to tell you how abhorrent that is to those of us who kept watch with the nuclear fire in the old days. Seventy is not enough. The units involved should be disbanded, their names stricken from the roles of active duty units and every member of them discharged. Better to start fresh than try and salvage units with this much rot. |
| Posted by: RWV 2007-10-20 15:49 |
| #7 The Air Force said Friday it would punish 70 airmen Note it deliberately does NOT say "Officers" only "Airmen" so the ranks take the blame once again. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2007-10-20 12:36 |
| #6 Those who’ve been then can correct me, but my observation of what evolved is the result of a long trail of administrative cover up that should have resulted in about half as many reliefs over the past decade or so. Instead we get an avalanche in one quick shot. How it works is that the reg and procedures say execute 1,2,3 However someone screws up, but because of influence or sympathy or just the unwillingness to pull the trigger right then and there, someone in the chain of command mod’s the procedure to 1, 2a, 2b, 3 Then another ‘incident’ occurs, and again the corrective action doesn’t happen but the procedure is mod once again to 1, 2a1, 2a2, 2b1, 2b2, 2b3, 3 The problem then compounds so that the procedures are now several lines of 2a, 2b, and now up to 2z. Meanwhile up the chain of command, no one is walking the process through so the guys down below just muddle through. No one cares to ask why aren’t we doing the old 1,2, 3 procedure? BANG! The years of paper patching what should have been solved by quick on the spot corrective discipline gets a boat load of people in one big shot with lots of collateral damage spread around. Not that people didn’t understand the consequences, everyone has been playing musical chairs with the issues for years, just hoping they’re not the one’s in the wrong spot [assignment] when the music stops. I’ll believe in justice if the investigation does a ‘look back’ to see all the previous supervisors/commanders who had let the situation deteriorate to this level get theirs too. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-10-20 09:47 |
| #5 Procedures proliferated until there were too many cooks in the kitchen. As they say, "Too many kooks spoil the broth." |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-10-20 05:23 |
| #4 This is quite amazing. Back in the 1970s when I came into contact with field artillery nukes, the handling and accounting procedures were fairly straightforward. Details can't be posted, of course, but suffice to say that there were designated officers who knew where every device was and what its status was at all times. Procedures in the USAF must be awesomely complex for this screw-up to be possible and for so many to be culpable. I suspect natural bureaucratic inflation as the real culprit. Procedures proliferated until there were too many cooks in the kitchen. |
| Posted by: Lord Piltdown 2007-10-20 05:06 |
| #3 #2 Yep, mass executions on the taxiway. The ghost of LeMay is walking the halls at offut and the pentagon. I smell a good old witch hunt/ purge coming down the pipe. This is gonna be unpleasant to watch. I'm glad I'm army guard right now. Civilian is even safer.. LOL! Ima still afraid.. boo! |
| Posted by: Red Dawg 2007-10-20 05:03 |
| #2 Yep, mass executions on the taxiway. The ghost of LeMay is walking the halls at offut and the pentagon. I smell a good old witch hunt/ purge coming down the pipe. This is gonna be unpleasant to watch. I'm glad I'm army guard right now. |
| Posted by: N guard 2007-10-20 01:25 |
| #1 Mass punishment? Not a good thing. Makes one wonder about procedural systems and oversight in place. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2007-10-20 01:25 |