As always: it wasn’t me
That said, I did fly this day. We had a minor incident on our flight and I spent a long weekend thinking I was going to jail
Today in 2007 at Minot AFB, North Dakota, munitions crews mistakenly loaded a B-52H bomber with six Advanced Cruise Missiles, each armed with a live W80-1 nuclear warhead with a variable yield of 5-150 kilotons. The plane sat on the tarmac overnight without any special guards.
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The day of the flight, my crew was planned for a semi-routine sortie to Canada for (conventional) weapons and flare drops. All planned, all known, not like we’re attacking Canada
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The sortie was mostly normal but - blah blah blah lit Canada on fire - and we’re asked to stop dropping flares
It was a dry summer, things happen. No one seemed mad
We return and go to start debrief but someone from Command Post shows up…
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They proceed to pull every instructor from the debrief & leave us newbies staring at each other wondering WTF is going on?
Accusations fly. I get accused of lighting a foreign country on fire (true) & starting an international incident (untrue)
Instructors come back gray faced
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We’re told debrief is over, go home, speak to no one
Every other person shoots me looks which are a mixture of horror and anger
I’m terrified and left to stew over the long Labor Day weekend
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The first day back to work, I report to flight medicine for an issue ID’d during my move earlier that month
Curiously, not a single TV is on the news. For the first time in my career they’re on sports channels
As I finish my appointment I get a call to report to the base theater
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The same dirty or recriminatory looks follow me in with 60 something other aviators. No one knows what really going on and I’m on the verge of a panic attack
Am I about to get issued an Article 15 in front of my entire Group?
Hauled out in handcuffs?
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At this point my ex is almost holding me up because my knees are shaking and I can barely stand
The room gets called to attention and the Vice Wing Commander enters
He walks the entire length of the theater in silence until he reaches the stage
Then he starts ranting and raving
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We are dirt bags, undisciplined, the scum of the Earth
(Ex is now 100% holding me upright and my heart is going 200BPM)
Then the Vice explains about the incident. We (the whole crew force) are in trouble
And all I can think was: IT WASNT ME!!!! 🥹🥹🥹🥹
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Investigations followed. The crew that flew was from Barksdale, not our Minot team, so we were mostly cleared. The Wing CC, absent at our chewing out, was fired. As we’re many others
We did inspections, recertifications, our deployment slot was moved, and we got kicked in the ass
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I lost count of how many divorced resulted from this incident and it’s aftermath. We worked so many weekends. No fail was no fail and people had failed
As the 1 of the Wings 2 female aviators, I got put up in front of every GO/politician that visited the base to check on us
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This incident was such a foundational event on my career that I wrote my SAASS thesis about how my generation impacted the nuclear enterprise
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But at the end of the day:
Light Canada on fire: It was me
Accidental transfer of nuclear weapons: It wasn’t me
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@KeraRolsen
So uh..
I assume that unbeknownst to any of you newbies, the instructors coming back in all pasty had nothing to do with YOUR flight and was entirely a case of, "someone screwed the pooch, bad. Just how far is command gonna spread the hurt/blame?"
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@Detritus1976
Yeah exactly. But because of the Canada thing, they had to make sure nothing else was going to make headlines that weekend on top of everything else
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@brihard
Thanks! Glad to know we’re still friends. I’d hate to lose access to the best beer and cheese soup in Manitoba!
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@KeraRolsen
This is **w i l d.** There are so few opportunities to have a front-row seat to history...and fewer still to be a participant in it.
After the immediate kerfuffle, firings, reassignments, etc...did you see any significant changes based on lessons learned?
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@CatsVaxnNatSec
Yes and no.
Both a classmate and I noted that when the blue ribbon panel convened, they seemed to have a foreign conclusion: re-establish SAC. That said, the rigor with which SAC ran nuke didn’t match the geopolitical situation of the day
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@KeraRolsen
You forgot a really good part: the airplane with the misplaced nukes served as a static display for local DV's after it landed at Barksdale. Legend goes SF/OSI spent time trying to recover any film/ digital pictures that were taken...
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