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Minot’s latest alarm: napping with launch codes

Don’t sleep with the launch codes.

Two to three hours of shut-eye by a trio of missile officers entrusted with nuclear missile launch codes set off a series of investigations and once again focused national attention on the severe deterioration in Air Force nuclear weapons procedures.

The three officers with the 91st Space Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., had just completed a 24-hour alert shift underground at a launch control center the morning of July 12, and were technically “off duty” when they headed topside to the support building and walked into the crew rest area, where they waited for permission to leave the secured zone, Air Force Space Command spokesman Masao Doi said. A fourth crew member just off alert didn’t join them.

The officers carried a classified code component — a portable computer hardware module containing the codes needed to activate the control system for Minot’s intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Minot’s 91st oversees 150 Minuteman III nuclear missiles, according to a wing fact sheet. The missiles are controlled from 10 launch centers spread across North Dakota.

The code component is kept in a locked case. The device installs the codes that allow the missile launch control center to activate the ICBMs in their underground missile silos.

Once the component is installed and the old one is removed, the codes on the old module no longer work. The officers carried the old device.

The crew rest area where the trio waited is part of the launch compound’s above-ground living center. The single-story building looks much like a ranch house. Inside, there are six bedrooms, a large kitchen and dining area, a gym, and a command post for security forces airmen.

For reasons that are unclear, the three officers drifted off to sleep at the same time, meaning no one was awake to watch over the locked box containing missile launch codes. Two to three hours later, the officers woke up and realized they had violated Air Force procedures, Doi said. The airmen reported the lapse to their commanders, setting off several inquiries.

As of July 25, the unidentified officers were not back on the rotation list of airmen sitting alert, Doi said. Commanders will make decisions about disciplinary actions once their review is complete. The fourth officer who was not with them and stayed awake does not face punitive measures.

Representatives from U.S. Strategic Command, Space Command, the 91st, the 20th Air Force — which has headquarters at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo. — and the National Security Agency investigated the incident. They found that the missile launch codes were not compromised, Space Command spokesman Col. Dewey Ford said.

However, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and congressional leaders were not notified.

“Because [the codes] were never compromised, [the Air Force] did not contact top levels of leadership,” Ford said. “The procedural error involved the fact that they fell asleep. If they had stayed awake, this would not have been an issue.”

Asked for comment about the incident, a Senate Armed Services Committee staffer said senators had not been told.

During their confirmation hearing before the committee, Michael Donley, who’s been nominated to become Air Force secretary, and Gen. Norton Schwartz, the nominee for chief of staff, said their top priority is shoring up nuclear surety and restoring the country’s trust in the service’s ability to manage its nuclear weapons and mission. If they were aware of the July 12 incident, they did not mention it.

Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said the incident — a “dull sword” in Air Force parlance — doesn’t rise to the same level as some of the Air Force’s other recent nuclear snafus — flying six nuclear-armed cruise missiles from Minot to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on a B-52H without anyone realizing the missiles had real warheads, or mistakenly sending components used in a nuclear missile warhead to the Taiwanese government.

“It looks like it’s an embarrassing incident, but in the scale of things it’s not one that comes near what has happened recently,” Kristensen said.

He said mistakes handling classified materiel related to nuclear weapons are not rare. However, the recent major mistakes and their political fallout — the retirement of Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley and ouster of Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne — have changed how even minor incidents are perceived.

“I think many times in the past these types of incidents have just happened, people have fixed them and they moved on. But right now there is a lot of attention on this issue,” Kristensen said.

Minot has been ground zero in the crisis surrounding the Air Force’s inability to properly manage and secure its nuclear weapons. After the B-52 incident, which gained worldwide notoriety, several 5th Bomb Wing leaders were replaced. But despite strong scrutiny, the wing failed its nuclear surety inspection by committing a series of embarrassing blunders. Among the violations was an inspection in which a security forces airman played video games on a cell phone while on guard duty.

The 91st failed its limited nuclear surety inspection in January, also because of “critical safety and security” failures. But when inspection teams returned to Minot in May, they determined the wing had fixed its security flaws.