[SystemSafety] USAF Nuclear Accidents prior to 1967

[Nancy Leveson]

Sorry, I didn't read the Guardian article because I'd heard about the North
Caroline incident 20 years ago and thought it was public knowledge as it is
widely talked about in public forums. I'm not sure who it is secret from as
everyone I know in the nuclear safety world knows about it. I went back and
read the Guardian article about some "700" incidents. It will be
interesting to find out what the author of the book is referring to. It is
hard for me to believe there have been 700 incidents that nobody knows
about, but perhaps the DoD is better at keeping these things quiet than
they are about other supposedly secret incidents.

Nancy


On Sun, Sep 22, 2013 at 9:02 AM, Dick Selwood <dick at ntcom.co.uk> wrote:

>  Nancy said "The fact that there was one near miss (and note that it was
> a miss) with nuclear weapons safety in the past 60+ years is an astounding
> achievement."
>
> The article in the Guardian that Peter cites makes it clear that there
> were several near-misses
>
> d
>
>
>
>
> On 22/09/2013 10:53, Peter Bernard Ladkin wrote:
>
> While we're indulging in second thoughts....
>
> On 9/21/13 8:10 PM, Nancy Leveson wrote:
>
> I'm not really sure why people are using an incident that happened 54
> years ago when engineering was
> very different in order to make points about engineered systems today.
>
>
> John Downer pointed out on the ProcEng list yesterday evening that
> Schlosser also wrote an article for the Guardian a week ago in which he
> pointed out the relevance of his historical discoveries for the present,
> namely concerning the UK Trident deterrent.
>
>
> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/14/nuclear-weapons-accident-waiting-to-happen
>
> So he seems to think it is currently relevant.
>
> For those who don't know, Trident is a US nuclear multiple-warhead missile
> carried on British-built and UK MoD-operated submarines, one of whom is
> always at sea. The maintenance and docking base is in Scotland, at Faslane
> on the West Coast. Scotland is to vote on independence from GB (which will
> become LB if so) next year, and the putative government has said it will
> close the base at Faslane. Further, the Trident "so-called British
> so-called independent so-called deterrent" (Harold Wilson) replacement will
> cost untold amounts of money (we have been told, but no one quite believes
> what we have been told :-) ). Many senior politicians and a large
> proportion of the concerned public think that money would not so be well
> spent.
>
> It is obviously relevant to all these deliberations to assess how
> dangerous the old kit really is. Given recent events which have shown US
> and UK government agencies concerned with national security in a light
> which has resulted in many citizens losing their trust, I would think any
> technical assessment such as this, independent of government agencies, of
> matters relevant to renewing or revoking Trident is a welcome contribution
> to the debate.
>
> PBL
>
> Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Faculty of Technology, University of
> Bielefeld, 33594 Bielefeld, Germany
> Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319  www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Prof. Nancy Leveson
Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems
MIT, Room 33-334
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02142

Telephone: 617-258-0505
Email: leveson at mit.edu
URL: http://sunnyday.mit.edu
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