Air Force Came Within Inches of Destroying Us All

See that? That’s what’s known in the journalism field as “sensationalism.” The Air Force didn’t really almost kill everyone. Still, this story is scary as all hell.

Back in August 2007, an Air Force crew “accidentally loaded six live nuclear warheads into a B-52 Stratofortress—stationed in the Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota—believing they were conventional cruise missiles. The weapons were missing, without anyone noticing it, for 36 hours until the B-52 landed in Louisiana.”

How could the missiles have been mistaken as such? According to the Pentagon, the nuclear warheads were sitting right next to conventional ones with just a “8.5 x 11-inch sheet of printed paper to differentiate between the two types.”

I’m not ripping on the Air Force. Those guys are a hell of a lot braver than I am. But the fact that such a simple and stupid mistake could lead to six nuclear warheads going missing and no one noticing for over a day is terrifying to say the least. Follow the links for a more in-depth look at the situation.

[Military.com via Gizmodo]