Air Force Omits Nuke Error From 2007 Incidents List

By Elaine M. Grossman
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force chief of staff, Gen. Michael Moseley, said today he is uncertain why a key service command might have omitted an unusual nuclear weapons handling error last year from a list of serious incidents (see GSN, Feb. 27).

Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists revealed this week that a database of nuclear weapons incidents maintained by Air Combat Command, headquartered at Langley Air Force Base, Va., fails to note the Aug. 30 event in which nuclear weapons were inadvertently flown over several U.S. states.

“If important incidents are not on the official incident list, how can we learn from them in the future?” Kristensen asked in a blog report posted online this week.

The Air Force in October relieved three officers and disciplined others for loading nuclear-tipped cruise missiles onto a B-52H bomber at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., and mistakenly transporting the dangerous ordnance to Barksdale Air Force Base, La. (see GSN, Oct. 18, 2007).  The aircraft pilot and crew were unaware that they were carrying atomic weapons, which went without special security precautions for roughly 36 hours.

Service officials have since termed the event a “Bent Spear” incident — one that is “significant” and could require “immediate action in the interest of safety or nuclear weapons security.”

However, Kristensen reported this week that the command’s chronological list, which he asked to review in late September, inexplicably cuts off incidents reported in 2007 as of Aug. 21— nine days before the Minot episode. 

The database serves as the air organization’s “central repository” of each nuclear incident, which is added “as soon as it is reported by the [air] wing personnel,” Kristensen told Global Security Newswire today.  Air Combat Command gave him the list on Oct. 31, as major Defense Department investigations into the event were under way, he said.

“Something is fishy here,” said Kristensen, who directs his organization’s Nuclear Information Project.  “They’ve been fiddling with the end of the list, where Minot should be.”  Instead, a final entry on the list breaks the chronological pattern, addressing an incident that occurred in November 2006.

Kristensen said he was unable to explain the incomplete accounting, but recounted that one air official privately told him the Minot incident lacked a “Bent Spear” or other formal designation “because they didn’t quite know what to call it.”

Moseley expressed concern about the possibility that the major command had not adequately catalogued what he termed a “big deal.”

“If there’s a list out of Langley somewhere that does not have that on there as a significant event, I’ll go find out from John Corley,” the general who heads Air Combat Command, Moseley told reporters at a breakfast session this morning.

The command had not responded to a GSN request for comment by press time.  However, Moseley underscored how seriously he has treated the weapons-handling error.

“It’s a significant event to me,” he said.  “And it’s a significant event to all of us, that we had a failure in our people, a failure in procedures on checklists and tech orders and a failure in oversight.”

The chief of staff noted that he launched an immediate command investigation after the event and a temporary stand-down of nuclear transport operations.  Moseley subsequently ordered a “Blue Ribbon Review,” which found the event was an isolated incident.  That that was followed by yet another scrub, conducted by the top-level Defense Science Board.

Moseley said the Air Force is implementing 124 recommendations stemming from the various reviews of the Minot incident.  “I take this very seriously,” he said.

The Air Force chief said the service would soon begin segregating nuclear training from conventional operations training for months at a time, affecting aircraft squadrons that perform both types of missions.  These dual-capable squadrons would rotate into training that allows them to focus exclusively on honing their nuclear mission skills for six months to a year, he said.

Moving away from an approach that currently mixes conventional and nuclear training during a given time span would allow more disciplined adherence to special weapon safeguards, Moseley said.  The change would affect B-52 and B-2 bomber pilots, flight crews, electronic warfare officers and maintenance and logistics personnel.

Kristensen took issue this week with one Defense Science Board recommendation, that nuclear operational readiness inspections ensure that units can perform all tasks required “to generate full rapid response nuclear bomber force commitment.”

“That seems to me to be trying to turn back the clock,” harkening back to the Cold War stance of nuclear stockpiles on high alert, Kristensen wrote in his online report.  “Besides,” he added, “increased alert and training will increase handling of nuclear weapons, which will increase the risk that something goes wrong.”

“I don’t know about a higher state of alert,” Moseley responded.  “But … we need to somehow allow the squadron commander to focus on that [nuclear mission] and that alone.”

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