From DefenseNews

 

Posted 09/04/07 21:22

Nuclear Warheads Mistakenly Flown on B-52

By MICHAEL HOFFMAN

 

A U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber mistakenly loaded with five nuclear warheads flew from Minot Air Force Base, N.D, to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on Aug. 30, resulting in an Air Force-wide investigation, according to three officers who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the incident.

The B-52 was loaded with Advanced Cruise Missiles, part of a Defense Department effort to decommission 400 of the ACMs. But the nuclear warheads should have been removed at Minot before being transported to Barksdale, the officers said. The missiles were mounted onto the pylons of the bomber’s wings.

Advanced Cruise Missiles carry a W80-1 warhead with a yield of 5 to 150 kilotons and are specifically designed for delivery by B-52 strategic bombers.

Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Ed Thomas said the transfer was safely conducted and the weapons were in Air Force custody and control at all times.

However, the mistake was not discovered until the B-52 landed at Barskdale, which left the warheads unaccounted for during the approximately 3 1/2 hour flight between the two bases, the officers said.

An investigation headed by Maj. Gen. Douglas Raaberg, director of Air and Space Operations at Air Combat Command Headquarters, was launched immediately to find the cause of the mistake and figure out how it could have been prevented, Thomas said.

Air Force officials wouldn’t officially specify whether nuclear weapons were involved, in accordance with long-standing Defense Department policy regarding nuclear munitions, Thomas said. However, the three officers close to the situation did confirm the warheads were nuclear.

Officials at Minot immediately conducted an inventory of its nuclear weapons after the oversight was discovered, and Thomas said he could confirm that all remaining nuclear weapons at Minot are accounted for.

“Air Force standards are very exacting when it comes to munitions handling,” he said. “The weapons were always in our custody and there was never a danger to the American public.”

At no time was there a risk for a nuclear detonation, even if the B-52 crashed on its way to Barksdale, said Steve Fetter, a former Defense Department official who worked on nuclear weapons policy in 1993-94. A crash could ignite the high explosives associated with the warhead, and possibly cause a leak of the plutonium, but the warheads’ elaborate safeguards would prevent a nuclear detonation from occurring, he said.

“The main risk would have been the way the Air Force responded to any problems with the flight because they would have handled it much differently if they would have known nuclear warheads were onboard,” he said.

The risk of the warheads falling into the hands of rogue nations or terrorists was minimal since the weapons never left the United States, according to Fetter and Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, an independent research and policy think tank in Washington, D.C.

The crews involved with the mistaken load at the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot have been temporarily decertified from performing their duties involving munitions pending corrective actions or additional training, Thomas said.

Air Combat Command will have a command-wide mission stand down Sept. 14 to review their procedures in response to this oversight, he said.

“The Air Force takes its mission to safeguard weapons seriously,” he said. “No effort will be spared to ensure that the matter is thoroughly and completely investigated.”

 

[Just a tad scary. ]

From Air Force Times

 

Commander disciplined for nuclear mistake

By Michael Hoffman - Staff writer

Posted : Wednesday Sep 5, 2007 19:26:41 EDT

 

The Air Force continued handing out disciplinary actions in response to the six nuclear warheads mistakenly flown on a B-52 Stratofortress bomber from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on Aug. 30. The squadron commander in charge of Minot’s munitions crews was relieved of all duties pending the investigation.

 

It was originally reported that five nuclear warheads were transported, but officers who tipped Military Times to the incident who have asked to remain anonymous since they are not authorized to discuss the incident, have since updated that number to six.

 

Air Force and defense officials would not confirm the missiles were armed with nuclear warheads Wednesday, citing longstanding policy, but they did confirm the Air Force was “investigating an error made last Thursday during the transfer of munitions” from Minot to Barksdale.

 

The original plan was to transport non-nuclear Advanced Cruise Missiles, mounted on the wings of a B-52, to Barksdale as part of a Defense Department effort to decommission 400 of the ACMs. It was not discovered that the six missiles had nuclear warheads until the plane landed at Barksdale, leaving the warheads unaccounted for during the approximately 3 1/2 hour flight between the two bases, the officers said.

 

President Bush was immediately alerted to the mistake and the Air Force launched a service-wide investigation headed by Maj. Gen. Douglas Raaberg, director of Air and Space Operations at Air Combat Command Headquarters, said Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Ed Thomas.

 

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has requested daily briefings from Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley on the progress of the probe. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., a member of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, requested a full classified briefing, not just the preliminary information being provided to lawmakers, to explain how a mistake of this magnitude could have happened.

 

Thomas said the transfer was conducted safely and the American public was never in any danger since the weapons were in Air Force custody and control at all times.

 

But few critics were placated Wednesday by the Air Force’s reassurances.

 

“Nothing like this has ever been reported before and we have been assured for decades that it was impossible,” said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass, co-chair of the House Bi-partisan Task Force.

 

Non-proliferation treaty experts said the Air Force didn’t violate any international nuclear treaties by transporting the nuclear warheads on the B-52, but it was the first time since 1968 that it’s been known publicly that nuclear warheads were transported on a U.S. bomber.

 

After six nuclear-armed B-52s crashed from 1959-1968, the Defense Department ordered all bombers off nuclear airborne alert. The policy change occurred after a B-52 crashed in Greenland in January 1968, dropping three nuclear warheads on the island and one into the ocean.

 

As a gesture to Russia and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the first Bush administration took it one step farther in 1991 by ordering all bombers to halt nuclear ground alerts, which allowed bomber crews to practice loading a nuclear warhead, but never taking off with one.

 

The Defense Department does transport nuclear warheads by air, but instead of bombers it uses C-17 or C-130 cargo aircraft.

 

“These reports are deeply disturbing,” said Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. “The American people, our friends, and our potential adversaries must be confident that the highest standards are in place when it comes to our nuclear arsenal.”

 

Nuclear weapon experts said they were shocked to find out how completely command and control over the six nuclear warheads failed to allow such a mistake to occur.

 

Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said a host of security checks and warning signs must have been passed over, or completely ignored, for the warheads to have been unknowingly loaded onto the B-52.

 

ACMs are specifically designed to carry a W80-1 nuclear warhead with a yield of 5 to 150 kilotons and delivered by B-52 strategic bombers.

 

“It’s not like they had nuclear ACMs and conventional ACMs right next to each other and they just happened to load one with a nuclear warhead,” Kristensen said.

 

The Defense Department uses a computerized tracking program to keep tabs on each one of its nuclear warheads, he said. For the six warheads to make it onto the B-52, each one would have had to be signed out of its storage bunker and transported to the bomber. Diligent safety protocols would then have had to been ignored to load the warheads onto the plane, Kristensen said.

 

All ACMs loaded with a nuclear warhead have distinct red signs distinguishing them from ACMs without a nuclear yield, he said. ACMs with nuclear warheads also weigh significantly more than missiles without them.

 

“I just can’t imagine how all of this happened,” said Philip Coyle, a senior adviser on nuclear weapons at the Center for Defense Information. “The procedures are so rigid; this is the last thing that’s supposed to happen.”

 

The risk of the warheads falling into the hands of rogue nations or terrorists was minimal since the weapons never left the United States, said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, an independent research and policy think tank in Washington D.C.

 

At no time was there a risk for a nuclear detonation, even if the B-52 crashed on its way to Barksdale, said Steve Fetter, a former Defense Department official who worked on nuclear weapons policy in 1993-94. A crash would ignite the high explosives associated with the warhead, and possibly cause a leak of plutonium, but the warhead’s elaborate safeguards would prevent a nuclear detonation from occurring, he said.

 

“The main risk would have been the way the Air Force responded to any problems with the flight because they would have handled it much differently if they would have known nuclear warheads were onboard,” Fetter said.

 

It’s still unclear specifically how the B-52’s flight from Minot to Barksdale would have been different since most nuclear security protocols are classified. But, Kristensen said the flight pattern might have been different since there would have been airspace restrictions. Also, security at both airports would have heightened considerably and the communications between the pilot and the control towers would have been altered, he said.

 

Air Combat Command will have a command-wide mission stand-down Sept. 14 to review its procedures in response to the mistake. Even units without oversight of nuclear weapons will take part in the stand-down, Thomas said.

 

“The Air Force takes its mission to safeguard weapons seriously,” he said. “No effort will be spared to ensure that the matter is thoroughly and completely investigated.”

 

Along with the 5th Munitions Squadron commander, the munitions crews involved in mistakenly loading the nuclear warheads at Minot have been temporarily decertified from performing their duties involving munitions, pending corrective actions or additional training, Thomas said.

 

The error comes after the Air Force announced last March the 5th Bomb Wing won two servicewide safety awards during fiscal year 2006.

 

“This is really shocking,” Coyle said. “The Air Force can’t tolerate it, and the Pentagon can’t tolerate it, either.”

From Air Force Times

 

5 to be fired for Minot nuclear mistake

By Pauline Jelinek - The Associated Press

Posted : Thursday Oct 18, 2007 15:17:21 EDT

 

The Air Force is planning to fire at least five officers for an incident in which nuclear-armed missiles were mistakenly loaded on a B-52 bomber and flown across the U.S. — the worst known violation of nuclear security rules in decades.

 

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is scheduled to be briefed Friday on the plan to fire the officers and other results of a six-week Air Force probe into the Aug. 30 incident. No one noticed for hours that the weapons were on the bomber, several Defense Department officials said.

 

One said the investigation found long-established procedures for handling the munitions were not followed and it recommends that five or more officers be relieved of their duties.

 

All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record. Two also said parts of the report were still being reviewed by senior Air Force officials, though it was unclear whether any changes in it were planned.

 

The Air Force planned a press conference for 3 p.m. Friday to discuss the matter, a spokesman said.

 

The service said last month that one munitions squadron commander was fired shortly after the August flight and that ground crews and others involved had been temporarily decertified for handling weapons.

 

In an embarrassing incident that lawmakers called very disturbing, the B-52 mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles flew from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., with the missiles mounted under one of the bomber’s wings.

 

The officials declined to say what procedures were not followed. But the mishandling in August would have required not one mistake, but a whole series of lapses by a number of people in order for armed weapons — as opposed to unarmed ones — to be inadvertently taken out of a storage bunker, mounted on the B-52, misidentified on a flight manifest and flown across the country for some three hours without anyone noticing.

 

The plane also sat on a runway with the missiles for hours after arriving in Louisiana before the breach was known — meaning a total of 36 hours passed before the missiles were properly secured, officials have said.

 

The Air Combat Command ordered a command-wide stand-down — instituted base by base and completed Sept. 14 — to set aside time for personnel to review procedures, officials said.

 

The incident was so serious that President Bush and Gates were quickly informed.

 

The Air Force said there was never any danger to the public because the weapons are designed with multiple safety features that ensure the warheads do not detonate accidentally.

 

But officials also have asserted over the years that such a mistake could not happen because there were numerous procedures in place to ensure the safe handling of nuclear weapons.

 

An Air Force spokesman, Lt. Col. Edward Thomas, declined to confirm Thursday morning what punishments were planned or give any details of the probe’s findings, saying Gates had not gotten the full report and those to be disciplined were not to be notified until later Thursday.

 

Three other defense officials said the Air Force planned to formally announce its investigation results and the punishments at Pentagon press conference Friday. But two of them said that could be delayed if, for instance, Gates wants further information after he is briefed or more senior officials in the Air Force, who were still discussing the report, disagree with the decision.

 

The anticipated disciplinary actions would be the most severe ever brought in the Air Force in connection with the handling of nuclear weapons, The Washington Post said in Thursday editions, quoting an unidentified official who said that was aimed at sending a message about accountability.

 

The weapons involved were the Advanced Cruise Missile, a “stealth” weapon developed in the 1980s with the ability to evade detection by Soviet radars. The Air Force said in March that it had decided to retire the Advanced Cruise Missile fleet soon, and they said after the breach that the missiles were being flown to Barksdale for decommissioning but were supposed to be unarmed ones.

 

Three weeks into the Air Force investigation, Gates also asked for an outside inquiry to determine whether the incident indicates a larger security problem on the transfer of weapons. Official said his request for the inquiry, which is still under way, did not reflect any dissatisfaction with how the Air Force was conducting its investigation.

 

White House press secretary Dana Perino said Thursday that President Bush “appreciates the fact that Secretary Gates [had moved quickly] to find out what went wrong, make sure it doesn’t happen again, and hold people to account if anyone did something wrong.”