who sez the Feds don't care about New Orleans

[madjack]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00762.html
madjack

[caseydog]

I'd say that pretty much trumps any of my screw-ups.

[SamR]

I'd say that pretty much trumps any of my screw-ups

Yeah, I've made some doozies myself, but can honestly say I've never mistakenly sent a nuclear warhead out for a spin.

[tonyj]

Maybe it was just some base commanders ingenious method to maintain our Purity Of Essence.

[Woody]

Gosh all I did was have too much to drink one night and welll..........................I'll save that for some other time I guess...........

[Ira]

Oy...don't get me started.

One of the most wonderful cities in this country is devastated by a natural disaster and no one does nothing.

Except for maybe accidentally nuking it.

[s4son]

Oy...don't get me started.

One of the most wonderful cities in this country is devastated by a natural disaster and no one does nothing.

Except for maybe accidentally nuking it.

I bet that's how they planned on getting rid of those poisonous FEMA trailers. A little radiation and you won’t even notice the formaldehyde.

Scott F.

[angib]

This made me think of a little problem at the shipyard I trained at in the 70s. They had built their first destroyer with a radar-controlled gun and on weapons trials they were zero'ing in all the systems to work together, so they tried locking the (empty) gun on an airliner passing nearby.

Of course there was an 'official' need to do this - but I think really it was so they could watch the gun staying fixed on its target as the ship rolled.

Then someone ran into the fire control centre and pointed out that, while the gun was empty, the gun's magazine wasn't - they were 'only' non-exploding shells used for testing gun accuracy, but I'm guessing they would have gone through an airliner as easily as through a target....

Procedures were tightened up a lot after that episode.

Andrew

[Bobgorilla]

Been There, Done That! Well, not exactly but close.

[asianflava]

Never was in the Air Force but I know several people who were. From what I've been told, any time nukes are moved or handled it is a big deal. You must use specific equipment to do it, specific people to use it, paperwork, yada yada yada. Something got screwed up or lost long before they were loaded on the plane.

Still makes you shake your head in disbelief.

[ARKPAT]

madjack Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 10:21 am Post subject: who sez the Feds don't care about New Orleans

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00762.html
madjack

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tonyj Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 12:27 pm Post subject:

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Maybe it was just some base commanders ingenious method to maintain our Purity Of Essence.

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Has someone been watching any Old Movies there, "Dr. Strangelove" maybe.
I like Slim Pickens and Peter Sellars characters in the movie.

Truth is stranger than Fiction?



Pat

[Alphacarina]

Never was in the Air Force but I know several people who were. From what I've been told, any time nukes are moved or handled it is a big deal. You must use specific equipment to do it, specific people to use it, paperwork, yada yada yada. Something got screwed up or lost long before they were loaded on the plane

Yup - Long before and long after too

I did 20 years in the Air Force and another 10 working for them in a civil service position

One reason the old B-52's are still able to fly at all (still using their ancient J-57 engines - Granted, they updated them from J-57-19's to J-57-43's later on, but they're still ancient, smoking powerplants) is because all B-52's take off nearly empty of fuel and then once airborne, they run to a tanker to gas up so they can go somewhere. A half loaded B-52 can't even get off the ground

So, there are LOTS of computations made by the engineer before takeoff with regard to load and fuel. He must know EXACTLY what's onboard so that he can program how much fuel they go down the runway with, so they can get off the ground

There had to have been AT LEAST half a dozen screwups at many levels for any B-52 to leave the base carrying those missles . . . . they are NOT light, and if nothing else, their weight would have to have been accounted for, long before the engines were fired up

Don

[Bobgorilla]

In the Navy, warheaded and non-warheaded missiles are physically kept in two completely different areas with two completely different levels of security and conventional type warheaded or non-warheaded are physically kept completely separate form nuclear capable also with two different levels security. Hard to imagine how this happened. However, as implied by my earlier post I was involved in something similar while a government contractor. While acting as crew lead on swing shift, my crew took over from day shift who had started ( about 3 hours of work) working on a missile and about halfway thru the shift the dayshift crew lead called and asked me to check if we were working on the right missile. Of course we were not, but had not put a warhead on yet (our next step, we had broke for lunch). Had we put a warhead on it also would have been considered "Lost Custody" because it wasn't where it belonged. Not quite as bad as the Air Force, but it felt pretty bad trying to explain to a full Captain at 10:30 pm.

[asianflava]

If you ever watch "Seconds From Disaster" on the National Geographic channel. They talk about a cascade of small mistakes that lead to a catastrophic event. Thank God there was no catastrophic event in this case.

[Alphacarina]

There was no real danger to the public in this instance because the warheads were unarmed and nobody aboard had the launch codes to fire the things

What it was is a terrible embarassment because there are lots of safeguards which should have made the whole thing impossible - You can't have loose, unaccounted for nukes laying around . . . . or flying around as the case was

Don