USAF Strips 17 Officers of Nuclear Launch Authority

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."

Comments

Re:Take them out of the loop

[erotic_pie]

I think they made a movie about this, it didn't end well.

Unprecenented?

[chiefmojorising]

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

Re:Unprecenented?

[Otis B. Dilroy III]

During the cuban missle crisis my dad was a flight line mechanic at Fairchild AFB outside Spokane WA.
At that time Fairchild was a B52 base.
He said that every B52 they had was in the aIr loaded with nukes, wating for orders.
The nukes had to be armed in the air before dropping so that they wouldn't go off in case of a crash or accidental drop.
During post-flight inspections, it was discovered that one B52 went up with all of its nukes armed. If it had dropped a bomb due to mechanical failure or crashed, big boom
I can only imagine the size of the boom that occurred on base when it was discoevred.

Re:Take them out of the loop

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Perhaps we could build a huge supercomputer called "Colossus" to take control. I hear Dr. Forbin is a sharp guy, he could be project lead...

Re:Not a new problem

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I think these are the same units who allowed a nuclear bomb to be shipped accidentally from ND to ??Mississippi?? a few years ago.

I, for one, shudder to think of Mississippi as a nuclear power...

Re:Take them out of the loop

[istartedi]

replace them all with electronics.

I think that'd be a WOPR of a problem. I think maybe the parent knew that and expected us to get the reference.

Re:Take them out of the loop

[bruce_the_loon]

and replace them all with electronics.

Cyberdyne Systems Command and Control System Model Skynet 1.0.0 approves of this message.

Re:Always the same

[girlintraining]

The weak link is always humans. The USAF had the best of intentions, was well funded and had oversight. Even so this was allowed to happen. At least they caught it.

Back up. If you look more closely, even a 'D' rating doesn't mean there was ever any danger of an accidental nuclear release, or lost/misplaced inventory, etc. This relates specifically and only to combat-readiness. These are the guys that sit in a room for days, hours, weeks at a go, with nothing to do but wait for the red lights and klaxxon alarms that say WW3 just started. They got a poor review because they were too slow in their reaction times, amongst other things as it relates to launch readiness.

This is the same thing that every military unit, in every branch, deals with sooner or later. Everyone's performance slips sooner or later, even if you're special forces. That's why these audits are done, everywhere, all the time. It's routine, and these reviews are part of everybody's service file. A poor review doesn't even necessarily mean you're going to lose out on a promotion opportunity in the long run. People are benched for retraining all the time. Mind you, the first step is usually additional training in situ, but given the seriousness of their job, I can understand skipping that.

But let's be clear: This is the military performing as expected. This is a routine thing, and it's only making the news because it involves nuclear weapons. If it happened anywhere else, it'd be a non-event.

Re:Always the same

[Obfuscant]

The USAF is, as you say, the gold standard. Civilian nuclear power is considerably less motivated and less well funded, with less oversight.

You're right. I'm all for removing nuclear launch authority from the operators of civilian nuclear power plants.

Re:Not a new problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Dunno.... but the AF used to give out 'Missile Commander' scholarships like water.

Sign up, get money for college, and then spend two years buried in a hole.

I met a few of these guys in grad school, and being a grunt in a silo sucked pond water or worse.
Always understaffed and had low morale, and the usual chain-of-command abuses
of the peons. And it's not like there's much to do in Minot, SD, so the officers figured
everyone should be available 80 hours a week. Good luck getting a degree with
the nearest university far (90 miles?) away and random, capricious time demands.
Good luck finding anything interesting to do, or getting or keeping a life.

Unsurprisingly, it affects/affected a lot of people very badly.