White House Down Wiki
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This is an article detailing the mistakes seen in White House Down.

Inaccuracies[]

  1. Missiles cannot be launched on sight. Approval must be done with the people at the silos.
  2. You cannot override NORAD and launch its missiles remotely without authorization.
  3. The submarine that is due to launch nuclear missiles is called the Albuquerque. That submarine is an attack submarine only meant to fight other submarines. It is not a ballistic missile submarine.
  4. On the laptop, the news shows a Lockheed S-3 Viking launching from a carrier. The Viking was retired in 2010.
  5. When Sawyer and Cale take Ground Force One, they eventually want to shoot a rocket launcher at the fence. Sawyer wants to do this while hanging out of the window. The windows on The Beast are made out of ten inch thick, bullet-proof glass and cannot be rolled down. This is done for the president's own safety.
  6. Sawyer's handprint wouldn't have been able to access the nuclear football because Raphelson was the president at the time. Of course, this is somewhat plausible, since this is only speculation.
  7. A RPG-7 is launched at a M1A2 Abrams MBT, which somehow penitrates the armor and destroys it. This is unrealistic as a RPG does not have the capibilty to penitrate any thickness of armor on the M1A2.
  8. The nuclear football is not known to contain a laptop. In the 1980s, it contained a book that listed retaliatory options, another book listing classified site locations, a manila folder describing procedures to initiate a nationwide emergency broadcast, and a card with authentication codes. The nuclear football now has an antenna pretruding from it, suggesting that it contains a communication device, but this would likely be a radio, not a laptop.
  9. Continuity of government should have been enacted much sooner, with officials waiting only a minute after loss of contact. The President does not need to be dead for an acting president to be put in place; they only need to be unable to fulfill their duty in the present. The news reporter was incorrect when they said the swearing in of an acting president confirmed Sawyer's death, as it could mean many other things.
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