US missile crew in trouble
25/07/2008 11:53  - (SA)  

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Washington - Members of a US Air Force nuclear missile crew face disciplinary action for going to sleep while in possession of an invalidated nuclear launch code component, an air force spokesperson said on Thursday.

The breach occured on July 12 at Minot Air Force Base in South Dakota, the scene of two other recent high profile lapses involving nuclear weapons or nuclear-related components, according to the spokesperson.

"There was an investigation that determined that there was a compromise of classified material," said Lieutenant Colonel Mike Paoli.

The nuclear launch code component is a device that enables the missile crew to issue an electronic command to launch a nuclear missile.

The code is automatically invalidated and replaced with a new code when it is removed from the missile launch centre.

The missile crew had come off a 24-hour watch with the invalidated code component and were in a crew rest area awaiting transportation back to the base when several of them went to sleep, Paoli said.

"But they are still within a security missile alert facility, the codes themselves are within a secure computer," he said.

The breach was reported by one of the missile crew members, he said.

"We would say it's a procedural issue, but when you're dealing with nukes all these different procedures are steps in the safeguarding process, and they are important," he said.

Paoli said the crew members "undoubtedly are facing administrative disciplinary action".

The air force's handling of US nuclear weapons has come under intense scrutiny because of a series of mishaps.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates took the unprecedented step last month of firing both the air force chief of staff and the service's civilian secretary for failing to get a grip on a 10-year erosion of standards in the nuclear forces.

Last year, nuclear-armed cruise missiles were inadvertently loaded onto a B-52 bomber at Minot and flown to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

In March, the air force discovered it had mistakenly shipped nose cone assemblies with fuses to trigger nuclear weapons to Taiwan in 2006.

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