WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Air Force said Friday it has punished 70 airmen involved in the accidental, cross-country flight of a nuclear-armed B-52 bomber following an investigation that found widespread disregard for the rules on handling such munitions. ''There has been an erosion of adherence to weapons-handling standards at Minot Air Force Base and Barksdale Air Force Base,'' said Maj. Gen. Richard Newton, the Air Force deputy chief of staff for operations.
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A main reason for the error was that crews had decided not to follow a complex schedule under which the status of the missiles is tracked while they are disarmed, loaded, moved and so on, one official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. The airmen replaced the schedule with their own ''informal'' system, he said, though he didn't say why they did that nor how long they had been doing it their own way.
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Newton said the flight in question resulted from an ''unprecedented string of procedural errors,'' beginning with a failure by airmen to conduct a required inspection of the missiles before they were loaded aboard the B-52 bomber at Minot. The crew flying the plane was unaware nuclear warheads were on its wing, though it wasn't explained what role they played in the mistake.
Highest ranked among those punished were four officers who were relieved this week of their commands, including the 5th Bomb Wing commander at Minot -- Col. Bruce Emig, who also has been the base commander since June.
In addition, the wing has been ''decertified from its wartime mission,'' Newton said.
Some 65 airmen have been decertified from handling nuclear weapons. The certification process looks at a person's psychological profile, any medications they are taking and other factors in determining a person's reliability to handle weapons.
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[Air Force Secretary Michael W] Wynne prefaced his remarks about the B-52 incident by saying that, in publicly confirming that nuclear weapons were involved, he had authorized a one-time exception to U.S. policy, which states that the location of nuclear weapons will never be confirmed publicly. He said he made this exception because of the seriousness of the episode and its importance to the nation.
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