Someone Screwed Up...

Heads are going to roll. That's the opinion of one military analyst, after learning a B-52 crew inadvertantly transported six nuclear warheads from North Dakota to Louisiana last week, breaching several US Air Force and international regulations on the transport of such weapons.

Citing an original report by the Army Times, CNN reports the bomber took the missiles from Minot AFB to Barksdale AFB for decomissioning Thursday. The plane flew over several US states, with the cruise missiles carried on underwing pylons.

While the Air Force doesn't usually comment on its procedures for transporting such weapons, USAF officials told CNN the incident was a significant breach of security...  while also taking pains to reassure citizens the situation sounds a lot scarier than it actually was.

"The public was never in any danger," Lt. Col. Ed Thomas said.

That may be true, acknowledged retired USAF major general Don Shepperd... but the incident is still  alarming.

"This is a major gaffe, and it's going to cause some heads to roll down the line," said Shepperd, who now works as a military analyst for CNN. Sheppard went on to say the incident would appear to violate a Cold War-era treaty banning the aerial transport of nuclear weapons.

The plane's crew was apparently unaware the missiles were nuclear-ready. The warheads were not armed, and officials say had the aircraft crashed or the missiles become detached from the wings, they would have remained inert.

Sheppard says it's true the weapons likely would not have triggered a nuclear blast in those scenarios... but that's still small comfort. "Any time you have nuclear material on board, if the airplane crashes, nuclear material can be spread in the immediate area of the crash, so you get radioactivity in the immediate area of the crash," he said.

"This is serious business but it was not dangerous business."

As the incident involved nuclear warheads, President Bush was also notified of the error.

FMI: www.af.mil