U.S. Still Seeks Answers to Nuclear Flight Error

The U.S. Air Force has still not identified the root errors behind the mistaken transfer of nuclear warheads by a U.S. strategic bomber from one air base to another, the Washington Post reported Sunday (see GSN, Sept. 7).

An investigation of the incident was triggered immediately after ground crews at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., discovered six nuclear-armed Advanced Cruise Missiles on a B-52 bomber that had intended to ferry unarmed missiles from Minot Air Force Base, N.D.

The United States stopped carrying nuclear weapons on bombers in the late 1960s after a series of crashes resulted in lost nuclear weapons or major cleanup efforts at the crash sites.

A series of administrative errors at several levels allowed last month’s unauthorized warhead movement, the Post reported.

First, nuclear-armed missiles are supposed to be stored separately from other weapons, according to the Post.

“We always relied on segregation of nuclear weapons from conventional weapons,” said Charles Curtis, a former deputy energy secretary during the Clinton administration.

Next, the crews that moved the weapons to the airplane’s wing pylons neglected to notice that the missiles were armed with nuclear weapons.  Nuclear weapons are often marked with special red markers, according to the Post, and Advanced Cruise Missiles also have a small viewing window in the missile body to see the color of the warhead, which is specifically marked if it is nuclear.

Once the weapons were mistakenly determined to be non-nuclear, a set of special security precautions were never initiated.

The weapons sat on the airplane for 15 hours at Minot with only the standard base protection of its perimeter fence and mobile patrols, according to the Post.

Air Force rules also call for the flight crew to inspect its munitions before takeoff, but the nuclear weapons were missed when a crew member only examined weapons on one side of the plane, where unarmed cruise missiles were attached, the Post reported.

“If they’re not expecting a live warhead, [the inspection] may be a very casual thing,” said Scott Vest, a former Air Force officer who served at Minot in the 1990s.  “As for the air crews, they’re bus drivers at this point, as far as they know.”

Following its 3 1/2-hour flight to Barksdale, the plane sat for an additional nine hours on the tarmac before ground personnel removing the cruise missiles noticed the nuclear warheads and initiated a “Bent Spear” nuclear incident report, according to the Post.  Defense Secretary Robert Gates and President George W. Bush were quickly notified.

The entire incident represented “a breakdown at a number of levels involving flight crew, munitions, storage and tracking procedures — faults that never were to line up on a single day,” said a former National Security Council staff member.

All those procedures have gained importance as the United States and other nations have increased their focus on preventing terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons.

“When what were many layers of tight nuclear weapon control internal procedures break down, some bad guy may eventually come along and take advantage of them,” said a former senior administration official who had responsibility for nuclear security.”

The Defense Department has promised to study how so many errors coincided with each other.

“Our response has been swift and focused — it has really just begun,” said Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Edward Thomas.  “We will spend many months at the air staff and at our commands and bases ensuring that root causes are addressed” (Warrick/Pincus, Washington Post, Sept. 23).

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