|
Post by Life's too short. on Sept 5, 2007 10:10:35 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by loadtoad on Sept 5, 2007 10:19:35 GMT -5
I don't know how they do it on B-52's, but when I was on F-15E's, to load a real nuke would take about 10 people. You are in a secure hangar that has vaults in the floor. So you need people to raise th vault and a special team to certify the bomb. It is a very anal process. I have a friend in Minot who works in Weapons Safety so I will shoot him an email to see if he has details.
This probably started with the ammo guys and improperly marked bombs maybe.
|
|
|
Post by Life's too short. on Sept 5, 2007 10:22:37 GMT -5
The process you're describing makes sense. That's why this is so baffling to me. It's not like one guy in a hurry to go home on Friday set these things aside and didn't check them and the guys loading didn't check and assumed everyone else did their job.
Maybe you can't tell me, since these were cruise missles and F-15's can't carry them, but wouldn't a munition loaded with a nuclear warhead have some kind of external flag or marking?
|
|
|
Post by Life's too short. on Sept 5, 2007 10:25:46 GMT -5
Imagine if the guys slated to destroy these missiles were equally as sloppy. I'm not sure if it's done through controlled detonation or what, but it'd sure be a stink storm if they did something that scattered a bunch of radioactive debris around an area not set up to contain such debris. I imagine the core probably wouldn't be damaged much, but what a mess.....
|
|
|
Post by nvajacketsfan on Sept 5, 2007 11:19:02 GMT -5
I can't even fathom this happening. There are so many hoops, like Load said. I've never loaded them, only guarded them, but the frikin check lists to get into the area where they are stored was impressive.
|
|
|
Post by loadtoad on Sept 5, 2007 11:28:56 GMT -5
I never personally loaded any cruise missiles. The only ones I have ever seen were training ones. I can tell you the warhead is internal and you could never tell if one was in or not. But since these were being decommissioned, someone really messed up not to pull the warheads out first. The weapon loaders would not have caught it b/c there is no way to tell if there is a nuke or not, (There is but can't go into it). But they would not have gone through the process due to the nature of the mission. My guess would still be someone in the bomb dump seriously fucked up.
|
|