Forum: Air Force Life

Story found on yahoo news:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081030/ap_ ... _silo_fire

Force: Nuke missile silo fire went undetected

DENVER – A fire caused $1 million worth of damage at an unmanned underground nuclear launch site last spring, but the Air Force didn't find out about it until five days later, an Air Force official said Thursday.

The May 23 fire burned itself out after an hour or two, and multiple safety systems prevented any threat of an accidental launch of the Minuteman III missile, Maj. Laurie Arellano said. She said she was not allowed to say whether the missile was armed with a nuclear warhead at the time of the fire.

Arellano said the Air Force didn't know a fire had occurred until May 28, when a repair crew went to the launch site — about 40 miles east of Cheyenne, Wyo., and 100 miles northeast of Denver — because a trouble signal indicated a wiring problem.

She said the flames never entered the launch tube where the missile stood and there was no danger of a radiation release.

The fire, blamed on a faulty battery charger, burned a box of shotgun shells, a shotgun and a shotgun case that were kept in the room, Arellano said. A shotgun is a standard security weapon at missile silos.

Arellano said the battery chargers at all U.S. missile launch site have been replaced.

She said the incident wasn't reported sooner because of the complexity of the investigation.

The damage from the fire was estimated at $1 million, including the cost of replacing damaged equipment and cleanup.

An Air Force report of the incident released Thursday found flaws in the technical orders for assembling battery charger parts, inspection procedures and modifications of the launch complex ventilation system. It was also critical of the presence of flammable materials.

Cheyenne Mayor Jack Spiker, who said he learned of the incident when contacted by a reporter Thursday, said the fire doesn't undermine his confidence in the safety of the missile operations.

"It's rare that they have an accident, and the accidents have never really, that I know of, amounted to much because of the safety devices that are built into the system," he said.

The revelation was the latest in a string of embarrassing missteps involving the nation's nuclear arsenal. In 2006, four electrical fuses for ballistic missile warheads were mistakenly shipped to Taiwan, and in 2007, a B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped missiles when it flew between Air Force bases in North Dakota and Louisiana.

The Air Force announced last week it was setting up a new Global Strike Command to better manage its nuclear-capable bombers and missiles.

___

Associated Press writer Matt Joyce in Cheyenne, Wyo., contributed to this report.

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Well, the new SECAF and CSAF released the AF's new Nuclear Enterprise roadmap last week. hopefully that is the shot in the arm that gets the AF back in the nuclear business. the mid 90's were hard on all the branches, but it seems now that the units formally under the control of SAC suffered the most, and in silence.

how sad is it that when the Navy admiral did his investigation, he noticed that most of the minor problems and mindsets that led to the incidents last year started 15 years ago. that is the time when the * Air Commands went away and we got what we have now.

i live near a missile base and it is not good out there right now. i remember days when the SAC IG team would land for a no notice ORI and if things weren't SH, heads would roll. squadron commanders, work center NCOIC's, cap crews would be fired for anything less then perfect and a Zero Defect mentality meant that you watched out for you and your co-worker. That has now been replaced with ORM and AFSO21 which says, "how can we mitigate the problem so it is no longer a problem?" and "if my suboardinates aren't doing their jobs, how can I make it look like they are and make myself look better in the process?" accountability is lost, respect is lost, and most of all pride is lost.

there was a certain way the airmen on a SAC based carried themselves. you could see it in everybody you met. now at a space command base, all you feel is who is out to get me and how do i make myself backstab proof.

hopefully the lessons of last year and the findings of this summer will instill a little more pride in the AF nuclear units.

Is it just me, or does the "Global Strike Command" concept sound a lot like *GASP!* SAC?

Further proof of what a completely useless consumer of oxygen Merrill McPeak was.

Its retarded, people just need something to complain about. This should be non news, i understand that nukes were involved but the safeties worked as advertised. This was not a result of mismanagement or lack of discipline, it was bad batteries and not the first or last time. Of course this wan not planned but in my opinion the AF should be getting Kudos because the systems in place working as advertised. Good for them replace the batteries, fix the silo and drive on.

Pete

sweetpete wrote:

This should be non news, i understand that nukes were involved but the safeties worked as advertised.

Now, you and I both know that, but to Katie Couric, Wolf Blitzer, and the cast of clowns at "The View", nukes are the most dangerous, unstable weapons that have ever been built.

They can't seem to draw the line between a weapon's destructive power, and the safeties which are in place to prevent that destructive power from being released until actually intended.

All they know, is that nukes go *BOOM!* and much is destroyed in the process. That is the reason why everytime something in USSTRATCOM or AFSPC goes to $h!t, everyone has to wear a diaper.

Elite 1K Joined: May 26, 2005 - 08:39 PM Posts: 1496

People are generally stupid. On some other forum the first response to the story was "wait, we still HAVE nuclear missiles???" Sigh.

Given the choice, I'd rather be in a missile silo at FE Warren that's on fire, than a weapon storage "igloo" at Nellis that's on fire. See, that's something about those conventional bombs. They seem to go *BOOM!* a lot easier than nukes. But again, can we explain this to "The (Liberal Women's Point of) View", or the Communist News Network? No.

While at Hahn, had a crew chief give a safety briefing prior to us loading some Mk82's. His only question was "Does anyone have any problem being 2000 feet in 45 seconds?" All of us said no... Smile

If you want to see what "regulars" look like when they cook off, watch the video of the Forrestal fire. Of course those were left over WWII, not the curret ones...

when you say the word "explosive" most people equate that to "flammable." the explosives in nukes is so insensitive, you could use it to make a fire as you would use wood. only problem is that wood is way more flammable then the explosive. same goes for the solid rocket fuel in the Minuteman 3.

it is just funny, but all one has to do is look on the internet and you would find out that even if the missile silo burned up and destroyed the missile, the warheads would either be intact and unharmed, rendered unusable but intact, or burn up with a pit of PU239 encased in a sealed up, concrete re-enforced steel tube around 80 feet below ground. either way the only way a nuke will explode accidentally is if someone "accidentally" goes through all of the mandatory procedures and protocols to cause it detonate.

It's amazing to see the lack of knowledge on the subject by those in the general population who choose to comment on it. No, I'm not talking about anyone around here Wink

Testing for these weapons included such things as sitting them in pools of burning jet fuel and intentionally setting off the explosives without going through all the procedures required for an intended nuclear event. The weapons withstood the heat and gave either zero nuclear yield or close to it when fail safe tested.

I suspect the solid rocket fuel is similar to the APCP (Ammonium Perchlorate Composite Propellant) used in high power amateur rocketry. I have experience with that stuff and I can say that it's a royal pain to light at times, but once ignited it will merely burn really hot and fairly fast. I just wouldn't want to roast marshmallows over the flame!

My take is that the safety systems worked as advertised and we should all be glad for that.

Forum: Air Force Life

Fire in USAF missile silo