If that plane crashed even if the bombs did not explode, radiation could still leak out just from the bombs getting banged/broken up. I think that everyone working on the base the plane left on should be fired. America is supposed to be safer than this, and if we cannot be responsible then we shouldn't have nukes in the first place.

But yeah...bad screw up...sounds like some dishonorable discharges are in order.

Even if they don't go boon.

Um how about radiation contamination ?

It would pretty much become a dirty bomb, i think.

@Desroko,

Yup, I am familiar with the process =) The president uses the "Biscuit" for authentication to give his orders and that authorizes them to access the codes. The two officers required to launch any nuclear device don't have the codes on them. Instead they usually have a key or a passcode to a secure location where the codes can quickly be accessed but it requires both of them to open it and both have standing orders to never open it without prior authorization which can come only directly from the president with 100% unambiguous authorization.

In any case the codes are probably rediculously long and since nobody on the plane had access to them I have to say I find it far less worrying than a president leaving the one thing that actually can detonate a nuke behind and unguarded (other than the one guy its probably attached to).

@Hus,

It could leak radiation, but nothing like a dirty bomb. A dirty bomb is a device actually designed to spread the radiation in some form, usually a cloud of radiation etc... In this case it would be the shielding on the bomb being penetrated somehow (which is probably not very likely in the first place) and then it would slowly leak out radiation to a small area and the radiation would never really spread anywhere.

There is a lot of information out there and a lot of it is a very interesting read if you don't mind being on the government watch list lmao...btw that was a joke =P

Leaving the codes behind is less worrisome than you think. Two military officers need to agree that the order was valid before the weapons can be armed and launched. If somebody happens to find the President's card, he'd not only need to guess the correct sequence, but he'd have to contact the personnel of a delivery system and convince them that he's George W. Bush. Maybe Will Ferrell could usher in Doomsday, but most people can't. 

The real problem is that these safeguards are only useful while the weapons are in the hands of military personnel. If they're lost, the triggers can be reconfigured to be detonated in any manner you like. What if these idiots had loaded the weapons on a plane or any delivery system that was going to participate in an exercise, or an actual war zone? It's not far-fetched at all, given that they're trained to treat every situation involving nukes with the utmost care. The weapons wouldn't be armed, but once they're launched God only knows where they could end up.  

Yeah, even if they couldn't go off, what the hell? How did they even get their hands on thermonuclear cruise missiles? What were they originally trying to do? The base they started out at has a stash of H BOMBS? THAT RETARDS SOMETIMES ACCIDENTALLY EQUIP BOMBERS WITH???

 On the first part: I thought I was clear in the idea that it had to be "100% unambiguous authorization" for them to launch.  Not sure why he would have to guess the correct sequence though since the other information in the football is information on the plans of attack and instructions for what the procedural order of things is...after all its not like every president launches a nuke =P

On the second part: Thats just it, as far as I know we have never actually lost a nuclear weapon.  So the idea that it would happen, in my mind at least, is at least 100x more far fetched than say Will Farrel ushering in doomsday with the football.  As for idiots loading them onto planes for a warzone I would say, so what?  They won't fire without authorization the same as they won't arm.  They don't just safeguard detonation they safeguard delivery as well.  How many people do you think would have figured out that it would be easy to send one of these bad boys overseas and have it be "lost" before anyone could find it by pulling this stunt?

But in the event it did leave the plane, the fact that each of the warheads is fitted with tracking devices makes it easy to locate, besides how many people can recognize a nuke on sight to know what it is and try to grab it?  By the time they got the thing on a truck there would be a minimum 10 satellites watching them  and more than likely there would be several heavily armed and well trained soldiers within seconds of blowing them all away.

But like I said, the situation isn't a "good thing" but good things can come of it.  My hope is that the people who do these jobs will be given an example of what happens when you make a mistake (aka large demotion or discharge) and hopefully provide just a little more incentive to be ever watchful. 

 Yes, it's nuts that they accidentally left the warheads on the missle before transporting them.  But, it requires a launch code to set off the nuclear device and an "accidental" set off is something like 1 in a million.  That said, there is still a chance and "safing" is the norm.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/design.htm

Read there for more information but the safing design is set with a threshold such that if even the most critical part of the high explosive in the device is triggered accidentally, the reusulting nuclear yeild is limited to no more than 4 lbs of TNT equivalent.  That's still a hefty explosion as it might bring the plane down if it blew up on board but far from catastrophe.

The concern here isn't if the could have been set off accidentally.  The concern is that they were "mishandled" in the first place.

Comon guys were were all fairly safe the damn terror chart didn't even change colors.........If it was a big deal they would let us know by color code

They should add a new color to the alert chart for incompetence and the alert level should be on it permanently.