Legal Commentary

Fire in Missile Silo Goes Unnoticed and Unreported

By TChris

A defective battery charger caused a fire at a nuclear missile silo near Cheyenne, Wyoming last spring, a mishap that is only now being reported "because of the complexity of the investigation." The fire burned for about two hours, finding as fuel (among $1 million of other property) a shotgun and a box of shotgun shells.

A shotgun is a standard security weapon at missile silos.

As formidable a security device as a shotgun might be in thwarting the theft of a Minuteman III missile, there was nobody at the launch site to fire the shotgun, or to save it from the fire. The launch site is unmanned. Five days passed before the Air Force noticed (while investigating a trouble light) that there had been a fire. How secure does that make you feel?

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But don't worry. Even though an Air Force investigation was "critical of the presence of flammable materials," Maj. Laurie Arellano assures us that "multiple safety systems" protect the missile from an accidental launch. What about an accidental detonation or radiation leak? Maj. Arellano says "the flames never entered the launch tube where the missile stood." What about next time? Really, don't worry. They've replaced the defective battery chargers. That's sooooo reassuring.

Arellano ... was not allowed to say whether the missile was armed with a nuclear warhead at the time of the fire.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on October 30, 2008 (boomark / email).