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Minot bomb wing recertified for nukes

Air Combat Command has restored the 5th Bomb Wing’s certification to handle nuclear weapons at Minot Air Force Base, N.D.

Gen. John Corley, ACC commander, recertified the wing on March 31 after ACC inspectors finished reviewing the wing for its initial nuclear surety inspection on March 29 and recommended the wing restart operations and training with nuclear weapons, said Minot and ACC officials.

The 5th Bomb Wing lost its certification immediately after it lost track of six nuclear warheads for close to 36 hours in late August. The warheads, mounted to advanced cruise missiles, were flown by a B-52H Stratofortress from Minot to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., where an airman discovered them on the plane, sitting unguarded on the runway. It was the first time a wing lost its certification to handle nuclear weapons since Strategic Air Command was deactivated in 1992, said Maj. Tom Crosson, ACC spokesman.

The recertification comes just four days after Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered an inventory of all nuclear munitions by the Air Force, Navy and Defense Logistics Agency after Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne announced on March 20 that secret fuses to nuclear ballistic missiles were mistakenly shipped to Taiwan in 2006.

In another month, hundreds of inspectors will descend upon Minot for the wing’s joint nuclear surety inspection, or NSI, which will include Inspector General teams from the Defense Department, the Air Force, Air Combat Command and Air Force Space Command, along with members of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

Wings traditionally have an initial NSI a month before the more stringent NSI so inspectors can gauge whether the wing is ready and recommend ways the wing might improve.

Units handling nuclear weapons must pass NSIs every 18 months.

The 5th Bomb Wing needed to regain its certification in order to hold the NSI, said Maj. Elizabeth Ortiz, a Minot spokeswoman.

Col. Joel Westa, 5th Bomb Wing commander, predicted the NSI in May will be the “most scrutinized inspection in the history of time,” during an earlier interview. Many airmen at Minot have been logging seven-day work weeks and working continuous 12-hour shifts to train and prepare, Westa said.

Inspectors failed the 5th Bomb Wing in its first attempt to recertify during an INSI in December, forcing Westa to push back the NSI originally scheduled for Jan. 23 to its new mid-May date.

While the 5th was decertified, airmen from the 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale traveled up to Minot to fill in.. And though the 5th has regained it certification Westa said he expects the Barksdale airmen to stay temporarily to help train the Minot crews and aid their preparations for the NSI.

“Their job maintaining our weapons is done but what they can really do to help us is assist in training the crews that our now able to train,” Westa said.

Westa’s predecessor, Col. Bruce Emig, was sacked along with two group commanders and a squadron commander following the ‘Bent Spear’ incident in August. Sixty-five airmen with the 5th Munitions Squadron also lost their certification to handle nuclear weapons under the Personnel Reliability Program, which the Defense Department uses to monitor who can handle nukes.

About 95 percent of those airmen have been recertified, but Westa said last January a failure of senior enlisted leadership helped create an “erosion of adherence to weapons-handling standards” that led to five major procedural errors at Minot, which were cited by the Air Force’s six-week investigation into the incident.

Since January four new senior noncommissioned officers have moved to Minot to take over for the four fired ones following the August incident and have made a considerable difference, Westa said.

“Having those senior NCOs who are at the top of their profession ... makes all the difference in the world,” he said. “Those slots that were vacant were filled by the finest senior NCOs I’ve ever met. They walk into a room and you can tell there is a difference.”

With a month and a half before inspectors arrive for the NSI, Westa said the wing still has plenty to do, but the wing is “back in the saddle” with the nuclear mission and the nation shouldn’t be concerned about their ability to handle the responsibility.

“I can tell you from my perspective that America can rest very well in the fact that we’re very capable of doing our job,” he said.