Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

USAF Strips 17 Officers of Nuclear Launch Authority

Posted by Soulskill on from the push-button-bad-guys-go-boom dept.

Freshly Exhumed writes "In an unprecedented action, a United States Air Force commander has stripped 17 of his officers of their authority to control and launch nuclear missiles. After a string of failings that the group's deputy commander said stemmed from 'rot' within the ranks, the suspensions followed a March inspection of the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, that resulted in a 'D' grade for the team tested on its mastery of the Minuteman III missile launch operations system. The 17 are being assigned to intensive retraining courses of 60 to 90 days, according to Lt. Col. John Dorrian, an Air Force spokesman."

1 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Unprecenented? by chiefmojorising · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hardly. This happened more than once during the cold war under SAC. Hell, entire wings have been decertified before. You don't have to go back farther than 2007 to find something similar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_Air_Force_nuclear_weapons_incident).

    There was an article in Air Force Magazine a couple months back about SAC history that touched on this a bit:

    http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2013/March%202013/0313SAC.aspx