August 29, 2007. Minot AFB, North Dakota. Airmen go into a weapons bunker to pull AGM-129 cruise missiles headed for retirement at Barksdale. They grab the wrong pylon. Six of those missiles still have live W80 nuclear warheads on them. They bolt them to a B-52. A navigator checks the right wing. Nobody checks the left. The bomber takes off and flies them 1,400 miles across America. For 36 hours those warheads sit on the flight line with none of the security, tracking, or two-man rules required for nuclear weapons. It was the first time in nearly 40 years a nuclear-armed bomber flew over the United States without proper authorization. The Pentagon called it a Bent Spear. Commanders were fired. Procedures that were supposed to be ironclad had been skipped five separate times in one morning.
