The Gazette November 16, 2008
U.S. Space Command reveals fire at nuclear missile silo
By Tom Roeder
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- A fire in a Wyoming missile silo last spring exposed more problems in the oversight of the nation's nuclear ICBM fleet, but posed no threat of nuclear detonation or radiation being released, Air Force Space Command said last month.
The command, headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base, released an accident investigation report on the silo fire Oct. 30, but had made no previous announcement of the incident. The Air Force has been under fire for months for failure to properly safeguard nuclear weapons in other incidents that led to the firing of the service's top civilian and military leaders and discipline for several officers linked to nuclear problems.
The fire occurred May 23 at an undisclosed location outside Cheyenne, Wyo, where the Minuteman III missile is stored, ready for firing in an underground launch facility. Space Command said it waited for the completion of the investigation to issue a report on the fire.
An Air Force Space command spokeswoman said the fire, caused by a faulty battery charger in a storage room, extinguished itself from a lack of fuel and what happened was only discovered later by repair crews looking for a wiring problem on the cables connected to the missile.
"This was no danger to the public and no danger of release or launch," said the spokeswoman, Maj. Laurie Arellano.
Space Command said the fire caused $1,030,000 in damage.
The problems revealed by the fire investigation include unclear technical orders, quality assurance issues and the improper use of duct tape on cables, the command said.
The Minuteman III carries a city-leveling warhead that contains plutonium, beryllium and uranium.
Experts say the risk of a nuclear catastrophe in the fire was miniscule, but still a real threat.
The Minuteman III is powered by a volatile solid rocket booster that if ignited in a sealed silo would destroy the weapon and possibly damage the nuclear warhead.
Safety features on the warhead would prevent fission and a nuclear detonation, but damage to the device would result in a release of radioactive material.
Space Command said the fire never reached the missile launch tube and was limited to the equipment room, meaning the booster and warhead were never in jeopardy.
That doesn't mean experts are taking the incident lightly.
John Pike, a nuclear expert with the think-tank GlobalSecurity.org said that the findings or the accident investigation, which revealed that duct tape was being used as a repair material in the silo, are cause for serious concern.
"The notion that you're patching up your H-bombs with duct tape is not encouraging," Pike said. "You also have to wonder if you have this sloppy activity that is revealed by a fire happened, how much other sloppy activity has not detected."
Pike said if the fire had escaped the equipment room and ignited the missile, problems including radioactive contamination could have been serious.
"You could have a pretty good clean-up job," Pike said.
Missile silos, though, are designed to protect the weapon from hazards including fire and that design prevented a more serious threat, said Chuck Penson, historian with the Arizona-based Titan Missile Museum outside Tuscon.
"They go through all sorts of disaster scenarios when they are building those things," Penson said.
Fire in a Titan missile silo caused one of the nation's most serious nuclear mishaps outside Little Rock, Ark., in 1980. Flames ignited the Titan's liquid-fueled booster and blew the silo's 750-ton blast door a quarter mile away. Parts of the missile, including its warhead, were sent flying in the blast, that injured 20 and killed one man.
The missile's warhead was recovered, and the Air Force said no radiation was released.
The Air Force announced last week that its moving control over nuclear weapons under a single command reminiscent of the Cold War-era Strategic Air Command in a bid to improve safeguards.
This year, the Air Force found a B-52 bomber crew unknowingly carried nuclear weapons on a cross-country flight. Another investigation found that nuclear missile parts had been mistakenly sent to Taiwan from an Air Force parts depot.
In response to those problems, Space Command examined its nuclear programs and started reviews including no-notice inspections of missile sites.
The command said that the fire led commanders to examine instruction manuals, inspect battery chargers at missile sites and order the removal of flammable materials, including duct tape, from silos.
While Space Command is scheduled to transfer control of its missiles in the near future, it is gaining a new mission of overseeing the Air Force's Internet warfare efforts.
© Copyright 2008, The Gazette
