[HN Gopher] Was there a U.S. nuclear weapons accident at a Dutch...
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Was there a U.S. nuclear weapons accident at a Dutch air base?
Author : Someone
Score : 137 points
Date : 2023-04-03 18:42 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fas.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (fas.org)
| GartzenDeHaes wrote:
| To me, this kind of looks like a host country demonstration,
| joint exercise, or maybe a damaged trainer.
|
| - EOD nuclear procedures are classified Secret Critical Nuclear
| Design Information. They will not allow someone to take pictures,
| nor allow civilians to watch.
|
| - USAF EOD does use three person teams for nuclear operations,
| two workers and one supervisor. Normally there are two people on
| incident response teams.
|
| - Some USAF tactical fighter wings do train to drop tactical
| nuclear weapons, even if they do not have such weapons themselves
| (for contingency/war plans).
|
| - Some nuclear weapon trainers have some explosives, so it is
| possibly a real EOD response. However, even if the procedures in
| this case were not classified, I doubt EOD would allow any
| pictures of an actual operation.
| MikeDelta wrote:
| Regarding secrecy: a few years ago secret information got out
| because soldiers used flash-card apps to learn it, and those
| cards were released/available publicly.
|
| https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2021/05/28/us-soldiers-expos...
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| You can find a lot of stuff on Quizlet with DoD related
| keywords. Seems like there are these tests they have to take
| for various MOS's that they are studying for.
|
| I'm pretty sure most of it is unclassified, but some of it
| might not be public. The flashcards for security guard/MP stuff
| has some generic stuff like gate runner procedures, but they
| also have base-specific things such as where Department of
| Energy OST convoys carrying Special Nuclear Material or weapons
| would park on base during a Safe Haven unscheduled stop. There
| used to be one with an old sign/countersign I think.
|
| The IT ones have information about where certain undersea
| cables and satellite ground stations are. The most sensitive
| stuff seems to be locations of infrastructure within a base.
| One of them mentions something about Building NH-95 at the
| Hampton Roads Naval base as being a critical site in the
| TS/SCI-classified network. Some of them also have the names of
| the officers responsible for certain programs that could be
| compromise targets.
|
| https://quizlet.com/463959814/scif-flash-cards/
|
| https://quizlet.com/547051333/knowperform-doe-vansafe-haven-...
|
| https://quizlet.com/773174649/spec-op-flash-cards/
|
| https://quizlet.com/761500482/isec-osi-308-310-flash-cards/
|
| https://quizlet.com/519052943/setup-and-operate-the-kg-175d-...
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| When the headline is asking the audience, the answer is usually
| no.
| nomel wrote:
| For reference, it's:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| We all know by now...
| nomel wrote:
| Perhaps a fresh concept for you then: https://xkcd.com/1053
| 23B1 wrote:
| Article: "It must be emphasized up front that there is no
| official confirmation that the image was taken at Volkel Air
| Base, that the bent B61 shape is a real weapon (versus a
| trainer), or that the damage was the result of an accident
| (versus a training simulation)."
|
| Headline writer/editor: "Hold my beer"
| vintermann wrote:
| "There is no official confirmation" isn't especially
| noteworthy, when they simultaneously boast that they would
| never, ever officialy confirm something like that if it was
| true.
|
| My bet is most of the editors publishing this story called to
| ask if it was OK to publish first, and got a yes. They call
| it a "limited hangout". Better that a reputable source
| publicizes it with a ton of caveats about how unverified it
| is, than that someone more hostile finds it out first.
| tremblane wrote:
| Trying to remember the specifics of the training we got
| when I was in the US Air Force on the rules concerning
| nukes. This is the gist of it:
|
| Above all: Don't lie.
|
| The default is "neither confirm nor deny". For example:
| somebody asks if there were nukes on the plane that just
| crashed? Can't say. Even if you know there weren't, you can
| neither confirm nor deny.
|
| You MAY deny if it would benefit safety. For example:
| someone started a rumor there was a nuke on a plane that
| crashed nearby and panic/riots are starting. An official
| statement saying there was no nuclear material involved
| could help settle things down.
|
| You MUST confirm if there is a safety concern. For example:
| There really was a nuke on the plane that just crashed
| nearby and people need to evacuate ASAP. Get that
| confirmation out now and get people away from the
| situation.
|
| In other words, when it comes to nuclear things with the US
| military, "no official confirmation" means exactly nothing,
| other than there is/was no public safety concern.
|
| edit: I never looked at the regulations, this was just told
| to us in tech school. But I just looked it up and there
| actually is a reg for that:https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/
| 54/Documents/DD/issuances/do...
| mistermann wrote:
| > Above all: Don't lie.
|
| > The default is "neither confirm nor deny". For example:
| somebody asks if there were nukes on the plane that just
| crashed? Can't say. Even if you know there weren't, you
| can neither confirm nor deny.
|
| "Can't say" is a lie (as _it is physically possible_ to
| say). "I _have been ordered to_ say 'Can't say', even
| though I actually do know the truth" would be not lying.
|
| Not that it matters because no one _really_ cares about
| fine-grained, _actual_ truth, I 'm just pointing out a
| neat part of our righteous, _democratic_ culture.
|
| > In other words, when it comes to nuclear things with
| the US military, "no official confirmation" means exactly
| nothing, other than there is/was no public safety
| concern.
|
| If one was to pay attention to official US announcements
| over the years, one might realize that "no official
| confirmation" in the above _could be replaced with
| anything_ and remain correct, due to their long, diverse
| track record of lying and getting caught.
|
| Of course, everyone lies, it is a fundamental part of our
| culture and "getting things done", I'd just rather we
| stop representing ourselves as being something other than
| what we really are.
| bragr wrote:
| >there is no official confirmation that the image was taken
| at Volkel Air Base, that the bent B61 shape is a real weapon
| (versus a trainer), or that the damage was the result of an
| accident (versus a training simulation)
|
| Even if it was at Volkel, and it is a real weapon, there's no
| confirmation that it contains a physics package, so there may
| be no "nuclear" risk, even if the weapon is badly damaged.
|
| I suspect if the core was inside, and there was a chance of
| it being damaged, they'd all be wearing a lot more safety
| gear, as plutonium is quite toxic aside from the radioactive
| risk.
| thrill wrote:
| Exactly.
| guenthert wrote:
| "Most people would describe a nuclear bomb getting bent as an
| accident, but U.S. Air Force terminology would likely categorize
| it as a Bent Spear incident, which is defined as "evident damage
| to a nuclear weapon or nuclear component that requires major
| rework, replacement, or examination or re-certification by the
| Department of Energy." The U.S. Air Force reserves "accident" for
| events that involve the destruction or loss of a weapon."
|
| That'll buff right out.
| [deleted]
| karaterobot wrote:
| 50 comments in, there should be a top level comment pointing out
| that the answer is "no", as stated as an update in the first
| paragraph of the article. So, this is that.
|
| > Did the U.S. Air Force suffer a nuclear weapons accident at an
| airbase in Europe a few years back? [Update: After USAFE and LANL
| initially declined to comment on the picture, a Pentagon
| spokesperson later clarified that the image is not of an actual
| nuclear weapons accident but of a training exercise, as cautioned
| in the second paragraph below. The spokesperson declined to
| comment on the main conclusion of this article, however, that the
| image appears to be from inside an aircraft shelter at Volkel Air
| Base.]
|
| So: no.
|
| Gimlet-eyed viewers may have concluded the same thing
| independently, by noticing that there a couple people standing
| around in the background looking bored, one of them holding what
| may as well be a clipboard.
| Someone wrote:
| > 50 comments in, there should be a top level comment pointing
| out that the answer is "no", as stated as an update in the
| first paragraph of the article.
|
| Not necessarily. Those 50 comments may have come before the
| update.
|
| I think many if not most of them did.
| mistermann wrote:
| If saying something was true was all that was required for it
| to be true, we likely wouldn't need nuclear weapons in the
| first place.
|
| This isn't to say that there was an incident of course, I am
| just pointing out a rather absurd aspect of our culture.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| I don't know anything about FAS, but this article does not
| reflect well on them, especially if they are representing
| scientists.
| 0xDEF wrote:
| They are an organization founded by scientists. However today
| their primary goal is anti-nuke activism. For example the
| author of this piece is a former Danish Greenpeace activist
| who according to his LinkedIn profile doesn't have any
| scientific background other than protesting against Nordic
| nuclear energy projects before moving to the US.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| From what I understand, they have had kind of a history of
| hiring PR / communications experts and later realizing those
| people don't really have the same goals or perspectives as
| the scientists.
|
| Seeing that this is a blog post (and one of many) and not a
| FAS report or article, it's also different in that particular
| way: Maybe it's written through more of an exploratory /
| human interest angle and meant less as a scientific
| publication.
|
| This seems especially relevant given the updates posted on
| the blog post; somebody is trying to keep on top of it, at
| least...
| verisimi wrote:
| Right. How could a figment of the imagination be involved in an
| accident?
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Exposing an accident like this via a picture added to a student
| briefing would be a lot more stupid than the flashcards fiasco.
| This is just wild speculation based on a single out of context
| picture.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| US military is now claiming that the photo shows a dummy weapon:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/03/us-nuclear-bom...
| bragadiru_mafia wrote:
| Ok and then the water supply and all the farms got contaminated
| and that's why they are closing all the farms
|
| If you're in NL can you buy a Geiger meter and take a really long
| cycle ride and validate the hypothesis?
| detrites wrote:
| There's an app for that:
|
| https://map.safecast.org/?y=52.34&x=4.91&z=7&l=0&m=0
| bragadiru_mafia wrote:
| Magnificent. From the bottom of my Heart. Thank you.
| bostonsre wrote:
| Would they be wearing protective gear if it was an actual
| accident? Also, the dude with the clip board doesn't look very
| concerned...
| jacobsenscott wrote:
| The guy with the beard (most likely the one who knows the most
| about it) looks like he's ready to take a big step back though.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Would they be wearing protective gear if it was an actual
| accident?
|
| Nuclear warhead cores were routinely handled by hand. Not sure
| if they still are, but when intact and non-critical, they
| present very little radiation risk.
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/after-wwii-scienti...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Plutonium is quite toxic, however, and I think by now it
| would be normal to have some protection when working with it.
| And given the consequences for playing fast & loose in the
| past, it's likely we aren't as flippant now. Also, you're
| talking about the scientists, not the EOD grunts.
| bell-cot wrote:
| > Plutonium is quite toxic...
|
| Myth. For example -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium#Toxicity
| zokier wrote:
| > so that the toxicity of plutonium is roughly equivalent
| with that of nerve gas
|
| Is not exactly saying that it is not toxic. I tried
| looking for actually credible sources for toxicity, one
| Los Alamos publication claims:
|
| > For example, the LD50(30) for dogs after intravenous
| injection of plutonium is about 0.32 milligram per
| kilogram of tissue.
|
| Less than nerve gases, but still I'd classify as "quite
| toxic"
| avar wrote:
| Hypothetically, if the bomb is damaged in such a way that it
| may accidentally detonate, it's going to be pointless to try to
| fix the issue while wearing protective gear.
| rep_lodsb wrote:
| This couldn't happen. It takes precision timing of the
| conventional explosives inside a nuke to trigger detonation.
| stametseater wrote:
| The protective gear would presumably be to protect the EOD
| guys in scenarios in which the bomb doesn't blow up. Just
| spitballing here but.. maybe SCBA gear in case it starts to
| leak tritium gas?
| dboreham wrote:
| The damage is at the non-nuclear end of the bomb.
| tspace2k wrote:
| [dead]
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| _It must be emphasized up front that there is no official
| confirmation that the image was taken at Volkel Air Base, that
| the bent B61 shape is a real weapon (versus a trainer), or that
| the damage was the result of an accident (versus a training
| simulation)._
| yellow_postit wrote:
| Exactly. Quite the chain of speculation built from a single
| image.
| azubinski wrote:
| It's just that Finland joined NATO...
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| To be fair, it is the news media... Reporters take nuggets of
| information, plus buckets of speculation, and spin it into
| something that you will click on.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| > To be fair, it is the news media...
|
| The article in on the website of the Federation of American
| Scientists. Quote from their About page:
|
| _" The Federation of American Scientists is a nonprofit
| policy research and advocacy organization founded in 1945
| to meet national security challenges with evidence-based,
| scientifically-driven, and nonpartisan policy, analysis,
| and research."_
|
| Hardly the "news media" or clickbait.
| tialaramex wrote:
| _Officially_ there 's no explanation for the image at all,
| but "It's some teenagers at my local high school, plus a lot
| of Photoshop" doesn't feel at all likely, does it?
|
| The idea that it's Volkel seems reasonably solid unless
| somebody has photographs _known to be from somewhere else_
| which look like that. We know Volkel 's B61s are stored in a
| place exactly like that, we know most US airbases don't look
| exactly like that even in Europe.
|
| So the biggest open question is: Did they prang a real bomb
| or is that a training unit. I mean, one reason you put so
| much work into training is that people do prang real bombs
| and it's important they don't freak out and instead follow
| procedure. So both are actually likely.
| jt2190 wrote:
| > Officially there's no explanation for the image at all,
| but "It's some teenagers at my local high school, plus a
| lot of Photoshop" doesn't feel at all likely, does it?
|
| Consider that a state-level adversary would definitely want
| to plant "fake news" like this (done indirectly through
| third-parties, of course), for reasons including:
|
| * bogging down our day-to-day operations as everyone
| "investigates" and "double-checks"
|
| * observing who in our organization reacts and how,
| revealing personnel, command structures, and capabilities.
|
| * undermine confidence in current leadership
|
| To be clear I'm not saying this particular instance is fake
| or real, just that this is a technique that can be used to
| gather information or tie-up on an adversary.
| slim wrote:
| At first a visor cover can be seen showing an orange-yellow
| mushroom cloud illustrating a nuclear explosion. However, when
| the video cuts and the commander turns to face the camera, the
| nuclear mushroom cloud cover is gone, presumably to avoid sending
| the wrong message to Russia
|
| I guess now is the right time to send the wrong message to Russia
| /s
| The28thDuck wrote:
| I remember hearing about bad OPSEC at Volkel. Something about how
| there was sensitive national security secrets indirectly being
| leaked bc soldiers didn't set their Quizlet flashcards to private
| when studying for their exams.
| DigiDigiorno wrote:
| Wow, I missed that one. I just looked it up.
|
| https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2021/05/28/us-soldiers-expos...
|
| I know these human mistakes are inevitable in a large
| organization, but it's still sobering seeing that a soldier
| would post nuclear vault release code locations and more
| online. I guess it's easy to be careless in the daily grind
| whether it's PII or nuclear secrets...
| WeylandYutani wrote:
| (When Russia opened its archives in the 90s we learned were all
| the nukes in Europe were stored. It wasn't a secret to the
| KGB).
|
| Officially to this day this is all a Dutch state secret (can
| neither confirm nor deny bla bla bla). But there was an
| interview with ex prime minister Lubbers and he talked about
| the nukes. The poor man's mental faculties were already
| slipping.
|
| If anyone is wondering according to NATO plans as I understand
| it the Dutch Airforce is supposed to be under US command
| dropping the bombs. A bit of a democratic cluster fuck that
| bypasses parliament to initiate nuclear Armageddon.
| gambiting wrote:
| That last part is literally in the article. If US President,
| UK Prime Minister and NATO Nuclear planning group all approve
| the strike, then the weapon is loaded on a Dutch F-16 and
| dropped by a Dutch pilot.
| Someone wrote:
| > But there was an interview with ex prime minister Lubbers
| and he talked about the nukes.
|
| He wasn't the only one. FTA:
|
| _"two former Dutch prime ministers and a defense minister in
| 2013 even acknowledged the presence of the weapons."_
| warner25 wrote:
| If someone puts classified information into Quizlet, that
| constitutes spillage whether they set it to private or not.
|
| Sometimes this kind of thing needs to be explained even to very
| senior people, not just lowly troops. I knew of a four-star
| general asking a few years ago why we didn't use Signal for
| stuff instead of Teams (O365 tenant hosted in Microsoft's
| Government Community Cloud), because he "heard that it's so
| secure that even the NSA can't break it." The answer is that
| there's a difference between a system being "secure" and being
| accredited for classified information or even unclassified
| information that the government owns.
|
| Edited to add: Another very senior DoD person actually got in
| trouble for using Signal for official business a couple years
| ago because, among other reasons, there's no way for the
| government comply with FOIA when someone is using a personal
| account on a commercial application like that.
| vuln wrote:
| > Edited to add: Another very senior DoD person actually got
| in trouble for using Signal for official business a couple
| years ago because, among other reasons, there's no way for
| the government comply with FOIA when someone is using a
| personal account on a commercial application like that.
|
| Do you have any additional information on the punishment? The
| precedence has been set that "no reasonable prosecutor "
| would prosecute someone over using personal servers/apps/out
| band communication to subvert FOIA and National Security.
|
| > Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary
| Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing
| the handling of classified information, there is evidence
| that they were extremely careless in their handling of very
| sensitive, highly classified information.
|
| > Although there is evidence of potential violations of the
| statutes regarding the handling of classified information,
| our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring
| such a case.
|
| https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-
| dir...
| iamerroragent wrote:
| I'd like some toasted hombres with a nice big fat slab of
| butter please.
| ambicapter wrote:
| Your quoted text doesn't reflect the sentence you use to
| introduce it
|
| > there is evidence that they were extremely careless in
| their handling of very sensitive, highly classified
| information.
|
| is not the same thing as
|
| > using personal servers/apps/out band communication to
| subvert FOIA
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| https://www.nextgov.com/cxo-briefing/2021/06/defense-
| digital...
|
| He stepped down, and my quick search doesn't show him
| actually facing punishment. And his case was different, as
| some members of staff did believe he was encouraging use of
| Signal to prevent FOIA strikes.
| warner25 wrote:
| Yeah, I have no inside knowledge, but it certainly looks
| like nothing in the way of criminal punishment. From
| various articles, it sounds like he only intended to do a
| two-year term, and he actually stayed in the position a
| few months after that while the investigation was taking
| place. He stepped down before the report was finally
| published: https://media.defense.gov/2021/Jun/21/20027452
| 47/-1/-1/1/DOD...
|
| Per his LinkedIn page, he went straight to what is
| probably a cushy job at Vanderbilt University.
| Interesting career path, by the way. He was "Director of
| IT at OpenTable" for seven years, and then did four years
| as a "Police Officer" in the Chicago PD before going back
| to IT stuff there.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Prosecutorial discretion does not have precedent.
| itronitron wrote:
| uhm, setting the quizlet flashcards to private would have still
| resulted in a leak of sensitive data...
| whalesalad wrote:
| You're not wrong - but "If a tree falls in a forest and no
| one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" comes to
| mind.
| havblue wrote:
| The espionage act treats negligence with strict liability.
| So if you "could have" caused a leak, it's still treated
| like a leak.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Is your username an homage to the stealth fighter?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The espionage act treats negligence with strict
| liability
|
| "Negligence" and "strict liability" are different
| standards, you can't treat one with the other.
|
| > So if you "could have" caused a leak, it's still
| treated like a leak.
|
| That's very much _not_ how the Espionage Act works, even
| just on the statute and beforr considering Supreme Court
| precedent limiting its application.
| havblue wrote:
| My original explanation wasn't that good and yes, I
| conflated the espionage act with how this situation would
| be handled (by the DOD)
|
| https://www.cyberdefensemagazine.com/data-spill-an-
| everyday/
|
| This is a better summary. At the start, everyone's phones
| would likely be confiscated and, I would think,
| destroyed, if they were discovered to have classified
| data on them. However, if the data was in the cloud it
| would be an even bigger deal.
| JackGreyhat wrote:
| No...But it creates pressure in the form of soundwaves,
| which could be picked up by ears and brains to translate it
| into sound ;) Everything required to make sound is there.
|
| Was that your point?
| moffkalast wrote:
| Spain: "First time?"
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