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Comment by karaterobot | Hacker News Reader

50 comments in, there should be a top level comment pointing out that the answer is "no", as stated as an update in the first paragraph of the article. So, this is that.

> Did the U.S. Air Force suffer a nuclear weapons accident at an airbase in Europe a few years back? [Update: After USAFE and LANL initially declined to comment on the picture, a Pentagon spokesperson later clarified that the image is not of an actual nuclear weapons accident but of a training exercise, as cautioned in the second paragraph below. The spokesperson declined to comment on the main conclusion of this article, however, that the image appears to be from inside an aircraft shelter at Volkel Air Base.]

So: no.

Gimlet-eyed viewers may have concluded the same thing independently, by noticing that there a couple people standing around in the background looking bored, one of them holding what may as well be a clipboard.

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> by noticing that there a couple people standing around in the background looking bored, one of them holding what may as well be a clipboard.

Beside the fact that a classified photo isn't going to be in a student handbook, this has all the hallmarks of a training session. Like you said, a bored instructor that's done this 100 times, student sitting cross-legged (next to a damaged nuke? ok), students simulating the checklist actions by just touching stuff, and some guy watching for some reason. (edit: not to mention, no personal protective equipment whatsoever)

This is from a powerpoint filled with stock images and this article is absurd.

I'd be more concerned about the truck explosion image (https://i.imgur.com/zUWLf4B.png) next to this one in the handbook. Is that how Transformers are created? Is FAS.org covering something up?

That looks a lot like the trucks they use to transport nuclear materials by road. They do all sorts of terrible things like shoot rockets into them, hit them with trains, and set them on fire during exercises so they can ensure they have training for and mitigations in place for every worst case scenario.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safeguards_Transporter

I heard somewhere that if a headline has a question in it, the answer is basically always no.

You heard right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

Because if it were true they would lead with that. The only way to get you to read it is essentially make up bullshit and put a question mark at the end.

I don't know anything about FAS, but this article does not reflect well on them, especially if they are representing scientists.

They are an organization founded by scientists. However today their primary goal is anti-nuke activism. For example the author of this piece is a former Danish Greenpeace activist who according to his LinkedIn profile doesn't have any scientific background other than protesting against Nordic nuclear energy projects before moving to the US.

From what I understand, they have had kind of a history of hiring PR / communications experts and later realizing those people don't really have the same goals or perspectives as the scientists.

Seeing that this is a blog post (and one of many) and not a FAS report or article, it's also different in that particular way: Maybe it's written through more of an exploratory / human interest angle and meant less as a scientific publication.

This seems especially relevant given the updates posted on the blog post; somebody is trying to keep on top of it, at least...

> From what I understand, they have had kind of a history of hiring PR / communications experts and later realizing those people don't really have the same goals or perspectives as the scientists.

If these are the doomsday clock people then that level of bending over backwards to be kind is unwarranted. If you consistently err in one direction it’s because you want to. If your organisation is consistently alarmist it’s a policy decision not an accident.

> If you consistently err in one direction it’s because you want to

Eh, seems like it could also be a lack of skill or experience, despite best intentions. Esp. wrt scientists & public communications.

> If these are the doomsday clock people

No, that's the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.[0]

[0]https://thebulletin.org/

It looks like a staged training photo in just about every way.

Article titles that consist of "yes/no" question should be legally obligated to include the answer. Though, the vast majority of the time, you can just assume the answer is "no" and keep scrolling, regardless.

Still, such open-ended questions, by their very raising, suggest something occurred that may not have, essentially contributing to misinformation and uncertainty. Without a person expending the time to go to the site and read the post's content, the uncertainty remains, and one may go on thinking "maybe" something happened, that didn't. Considering the article in question is published by "Federation of American Scientists", a group I'd expect to have a high standard of quality and factual precision, I'm surprised they permit such a lazy and irresponsible article title.

Actually, I clicked into the article so I can find out who the author is, so I can ask them to revise the article title. Whether they do or not, I figure I might as well contact them, since I already spent so long writing this comment :P

BTW, I saw this HN article hours ago and basically just spent all day thinking there was a US nuclear accident at a Dutch air base, because I saw the headline and didn't click through to the article at the time.

If saying something was true was all that was required for it to be true, we likely wouldn't need nuclear weapons in the first place.

This isn't to say that there was an incident of course, I am just pointing out a rather absurd aspect of our culture.

Right. How could a figment of the imagination be involved in an accident?

> 50 comments in, there should be a top level comment pointing out that the answer is "no", as stated as an update in the first paragraph of the article.

Not necessarily. Those 50 comments may have come before the update.

I think many if not most of them did.

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