Fire revealed nuclear arsenal problems

A fire caused over $1 million damage in one of our nuclear missile silos in May. The USAF Nuclear Command just got around to announcing it publicly yesterday.

The fire was May 23 at a silo 42 miles east of Cheyenne, Wyo,, where the Minuteman III missile is stored, ready for firing in an unmanned, underground launch facility. The command said it waited for the investigation to be completed before releasing a report.

An Air Force Space Command spokeswoman said the fire, caused by a faulty battery charger in a storage room, extinguished itself from a lack of fuel and was discovered later by repair crews looking for wiring problems on the cables connected to the missile. [...]

Problems revealed by the investigation include unclear instructions on the installation of parts for the battery charger, quality assurance issues and the use of duct tape on cables, the command said.

John Pike, a nuclear expert with the think tank GlobalSecurity.org, said the report, which revealed that duct tape was being used in the silo, is cause for serious concern.

"The notion that you're patching up your H-bombs with duct tape is not encouraging," Pike said. "You also have to wonder if you have this sloppy activity that is revealed by a fire happened, how much other sloppy activity has not been detected."

Pike said if the fire had escaped the equipment room and ignited the missile, radiation could have contaminated the silo and surrounding area.

"You could have a pretty good cleanup job," Pike said.

I know John and I can just imagine his dry delivery of those lines. Just a little understatement there.

The Minuteman III carries a city-leveling warhead that contains plutonium, beryllium and uranium. The warhead has an estimated maximum explosive yield of 330 kilotons, the equivalent of more than 30 of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, experts said.

The Minuteman III is powered by a volatile solid rocket booster that if ignited in a sealed silo would destroy the weapon and possibly damage the nuclear warhead. Safety features on the warhead would prevent fission and a nuclear detonation, but damage to the device would result in a release of radioactive material, experts said.

Experts said the risk of the fire causing a nuclear catastrophe was miniscule, but still possible.

How reassuring. Not.