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A Broken Arrow in Puget Sound?....
Slightly EFL - another version of this is also at http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/164280_nuke11.html . Have a salt shaker handy because of the original source...SILVERDALE, WA. ? A Navy Strategic Weapons Facility, Pacific handling crew came within inches of impacting a live Trident I C4 missile nuclear warhead during a Nov. 7, 2003 daylight dockside offload of the USS GEORGIA (SSBN - 729) at Submarine Base, Bangor, WA. President Bush was notified immediately Not very likely, though he was probably told within a day or so. of the ?BROKEN ARROW,? a military code word alerting military governors of a nuclear weapons accident. SWFPAC was shut down instantly, prohibited from continued weapons handling evolutions. SOP, no problems. SWFPAC?s de-certification seriously limited essential stateside military operations. No it didn?t. Anything militarily necessary to get a boomer to sea would have continued, with troops from anotrher base doing the work if need be. The submarine?s missile was hoisted up into an access ladder left installed in tube #16 slicing a 9-inch hole in the nosecone. The lift was stopped inches from one of the missiles multiple warheads, a distance measured between thumb and forefinger. ...Which is why they have protective covers on them. Impact concussion, impalement, or crushing a nuclear warhead can cause deadly plutonium air and water radiation contamination, non-nuclear explosion, sympathetic non-nuclear explosions (other warheads), and missile propulsion fueled fires. Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation ruled out terrorist involvement or connections. Again, SOP. This stuff happens a lot more regularly than one might imagine. Captain Lawrence Lehman relieved SWFPAC?s former CO, Captain Keith Lyles, on Dec. 19, 2003. Citing ?loss of confidence? in Lyles, Navy officials gave no other details in their Christmas press release. Rear Admiral Charles Young ordered Captain Lyles? relief for cause . Young is responsible for the care and feeding of all fleet ballistic missile submarine nuclear weapons. Enlisted men on the handling team face court-martial or less severe disciplinary action. Petty officers Robert Steel was topside supervisor, Mark Hammock - topside team leader, and Christopher Hamilton a topside team member. CDR Phillip Jackson (SWFPAC?s executive officer), and CDR Marshall Millett (weapons officer) were also canned in what?s been coined the ?royal flush.? I?ve seen what happens when an accident involving nuclear weapons takes place. Perfection and nothing but is the only acceptable standard. It would have been news if these guys weren?t relieved. A lift fitting must be attached to a missile before it?s hoisted up and out of the submarine silo. The tube hatch is opened, an access ladder affixed inside the silo above the nosecone. A sailor climbs down the ladder, attaches the lift fitting to the ICBM, then after connecting the hoist to the lift fitting, climbs back up on deck. The access ladder must be removed from above the nosecone before the missile is lifted skyward. On Nov. 7 2003, it wasn?t. Which means Seaman Dumbjohn was NOT following technical data. The handling crew took a break after making the bird in tube #16 ready for lift, leaving the access ladder in place. The sailors returned and began the hoist. The missile was lifted into the ladder slicing a large hole in the nosecone. The lift was stopped a instant before warhead impact. SWFPAC failed a weeklong nuclear weapons acceptance inspection (NWAI), ending Dec. 16, 2003, attempting new certification after corrective measures were implemented. Capt. Lehman led the 40-man inspection team. Now this does bother me a bit, because it indicates that there was a certain lack of focus at Bangor. SWFPAC passed its second NWAI on Jan. 9, 2004 ending a 9-week shut down of the nuclear weapons handling facility. Seen that happen too - in Strategic Air command, no less. Navy seniors have issued a gag order to all military and civilian personnel familiar with the accident that threatens court-martial or other federal punitive action if violated. This guy seems to enjoy making news out of the obvious. Remember - we neither confirm nor deny the presence... Prevailing winds that day blew at 5 to 10 mph over courthouses in Kitsap, Mason, and Thurston counties, and over the state house and government campus in Olympia. Also downwind the Belfair, WA. home of Congressman Norm Dicks. And if the weapon had been punctured - unlikely becxause of the design and strength of the reentry vehicle - a fire was NOT a sure thing, and for that matter neither wasan spillage of the weapon material. And if both of those had occurred, all they would have had to do was close the hatch. Of course, that woulldn?t have made for such a spooky story... Okay - I get the impression that there definitely was some kind of screwup at Bangor last November. Because of the time lag between the accident and the relief of the leadership there, I think that the USN didn?t initally believe the problem was any more than an isolated accident. However, after they dropped the base recert, that tells me they had a senior leadership that wasn?t paying attention to the details. This was not, however, some indication that our weapons are being batted aroudn like softballs. It also needs to be noted that the gentleman who runs jaghunters has some personal beefs with the USN - the P-I article goes into more detail on that. Mike Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2004-03-11 |
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