Handle with Care

Very interesting the flight of this USAF Boeing C-17A (reg. 09-9210) this afternoon.

This C-17A belongs to the 62^nd Airlift Wing, based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, serving as the Prime Nuclear Airlift Force (PNAF), the only airlift wing that is authorized to transport the Air Force’s nuclear warheads.

The aircraft took off from the Ramstein base in Germany with destination the Ghedi AB base, near Brescia, in northern Italy.

To make the flight, which lasted just over an hour, it did not enter the airspace of Switzerland or Austria (and so far nothing strange, by the way, they are not even NATO members) but neither did France and Spain, NATO members.

This raises some questions about the load of the aircraft, which has obviously been banned from flying over the two countries.

Earlier this year it was announced that new USAF B61-12 nuclear bombs would arrive in Italy  replacing the old B61-11 model, arming F-35 and Tornado stationed at the Ghedi AB.

We can hypothesize (obviously we don’t have the certainty) that the cargo that carried the Globemaster was connected to the replacement of the nuclear bombs present in the Italian air base.