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Nuclear Missile Crew Falls Asleep

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The Associated Press

Published: July 25, 2008

WASHINGTON - Three ballistic missile crew members in North Dakota fell asleep while holding classified launch code devices this month, triggering an investigation by military and National Security Agency experts, the Air Force said Thursday.

The probe found the missile launch codes were outdated and remained secure at all times. The July 12 incident comes on the heels of a series of Air Force missteps that already had put the service under intense scrutiny.

"This was just a procedural violation that we investigated," said Air Force Col. Dewey Ford, a spokesman at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo. "We determined that there was no compromise."

The lapse, which involved a crew based at Minot Air Force Base, was serious enough, however, to prompt an investigation by the 91st Missile Wing codes experts at the 20th Air Force, U.S. Strategic Command and the National Security Agency.

Last month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced a sweeping shake-up of the Air Force leadership, blaming them for failing to fully address a series of nuclear-related mishaps.

Gates said his decisions to sack the Air Force secretary and chief of staff were based mainly on the blistering conclusions of a report on the mistaken shipment to Taiwan of four Air Force fusing devices for ballistic missile nuclear warheads.

He also linked the underlying causes of that slip-up to an August incident in which a B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear warheads and flown from Minot to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

No one has been punished yet in the latest Minot incident involving sleeping crew members. A continuing review by Minot commanders will determine what, if any, actions will be taken against them.

Ford and other Air Force officials said the Minot-based crew had code devices that were no longer usable, since new codes had been installed in the missiles.

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