"SENIOR officers, including three colonels and a lieutenant-colonel, are among 70 personnel to be punished for slipshod practices that allowed a B52 bomber to fly across America carrying six nuclear-armed cruise missiles that should never have been loaded under its wings.
The nuclear weapons were “lost” for 36 hours after taking off on August 29 on a cross-country journey from the remote Minot air force base in North Dakota to Barksdale in Louisiana.
The pilots did not know what they were carrying. After landing in Louisiana, they went off to lunch leaving the unsecured weapons on the runway for nine hours."
http://web.archive.org/web/20080328150722/http://www.projectcamelot.org/barksdale.html#2
Just as relevant as what you posted and yet, somehow, we all survived.