U.S. Bomber Mistakenly Flies With Nuclear Weapons

By Greg Webb
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — A U.S. Air Force strategic bomber flew with at least five nuclear-armed cruise missiles last week, apparently violating nuclear weapons handling policies that stretch back nearly 40 years (see GSN, March 7).

On Aug. 30, the bomber carried the nuclear-tipped Advanced Cruise Missiles on its wings from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., the Military Times reported today.  Each of the missiles carried a version of the W-80 nuclear warhead that can detonate with an adjustable yield ranging between five and 150 kilotons.

Air Force officials launched an investigation immediately but said there was little risk posed by the error, Military Times reported.

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

The risk of flying accidents, however, led the United States to abandon all nuclear-armed bomber flights in 1968, according to Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert with the Federation of American Scientists.

Until then, the Air Force kept about 12 strategic bombers in the air at all times, with each one usually carrying two to four nuclear gravity bombs. 

Several accidents occurred (see GSN, June 20, 2005), including a crash in Spain in 1966 and then a crash at an air base in Greenland on Jan. 21, 1968.  The plane’s nuclear weapons did not explode in the latter incident, but their radioactive fissile material was dispersed at the crash site.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara that day ordered the grounding of all nuclear-armed aircraft, a policy that has continued for four decades.  Instead of flying with nuclear weapons, armed bombers were kept on alert on the ground with flight crews nearby to enable the planes to take off within minutes, if necessary.

In 1991, President George H.W. Bush reduced the bomber alert status further by ordering nuclear weapons to be removed from the aircraft and kept in nearby storage facilities.

“To my knowledge, the recent incident was the first time that a live nuclear weapon has been flown on a U.S. bomber in the air since 1968,” Kristensen said.  “But I’m sure there are bound to be some surprises in the classified files somewhere.”

U.S. nuclear weapons are routinely transported around the nation and the world, he said, but special transport aircraft are employed to maximize safety.

The incident reflects a major lapse in the command and control systems that ensure the proper handling of U.S. nuclear weapons, according to Kristensen.

“It’s not a matter of an air crew picking the wrong one” from a storage site, he said.  Moving nuclear weapons requires multiple authorizations from high-ranking Pentagon officials.

Handling nuclear weapons has always received unusually strict Pentagon guidance, agreed nuclear analyst Robert Norris, of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“Everyone from day one has assumed a special responsibility when it comes to nuclear weapons,” he said.  “Because they’re special, the Defense Department has required a special set of procedures and training and has made special efforts to identify responsible people to handle these weapons.”

Still, “you can have all sorts of security features, but humans are doing this and all sorts of mistakes can happen,” Kristensen added.

The error drew criticism from Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.), co-chairman of the House Bipartisan Task Force on Nonproliferation.

“Nothing like this has ever been reported before and we have been assured for decades that it was impossible.  The complete breakdown of the Air Force command and control over enough nuclear weapons to destroy several cities has frightening implications not only for the Air Force, but for the security of our entire nuclear weapons stockpile,” he said in a statement today.

The event should spur the Bush administration to slow its interest in developing a new U.S. nuclear warhead, he said (see GSN, July 25).

“This frightening incident highlights that the Bush administration’s plan to design and build a new arsenal of nuclear warheads is dangerous, especially when we can’t keep track of the warheads we already have,” he said.  “We should put the breaks on the president’s program for new nuclear weapons, and solve the daunting challenges posed by those weapons we already own.”

The Air Force is nearing the end of a process to decommission its arsenal of 400 nuclear-armed Advanced Cruise Missiles, Kristensen said, a policy that raises questions of why the service was trying to transport the bombs to a different air base.  Barksdale was scheduled to get rid of all of its ACM systems, he said.

Normally, Air Force nuclear weapons slated for decommissioning are sent to Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., where the warheads are separated from the rest of the weapon and shipped to the Energy Department’s Pantex dismantlement facility near Amarillo, Texas, according to Kristensen.

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