237 nuke handling deficiencies cited since 2001

[unhappycamper]

237 nuke handling deficiencies cited since 2001
By Michael Hoffman - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Feb 12, 2008 20:29:30 EST

Since 2001, the Air Force’s Air Combat Command has suffered 237 different “safety deficiencies” known in the nuclear community as Dull Swords while maintaining its nuclear stockpile, according to safety records.

The service defines a Dull Sword as a “safety deficiency not included in the accident or incident categories.”

Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, issued a Freedom of Information Act request for all ACC Bent Spear and Dull Sword incidents from June 1992 — when the ACC took over the nuclear mission from Strategic Air Command — to Sept. 27, 2007, when he made the request.

The response he received went only as far back as June 2001 because the ACC Safety database no longer has any records of Dull Sword incidents from 1992 to 2001, said Maj. Thomas Crosson, an ACC spokesman. Air Force officials could not explain why those incidents got deleted from the database.

Dull Sword is a term used by the Defense Department to describe a nuclear incident like Bent Spear, Broken Arrow and Nucflash. A Nucflash, which is a nuclear weapons accident that could create the risk of war, is the most extreme. A Broken Arrow is an accident that is not expected to cause war. A Bent Spear is typified by a “significant incident” involving nuclear weapons, according to Air Force Policy Directive 91-1.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/02/airforce_dull_sword_080212w/