WASHINGTON (AP) — An equipment failure disrupted communication between 50 nuclear missiles and the launch control center at Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming over the weekend, although the Air Force said it never lost the ability to launch the missiles.
The Air Force and the U.S. Strategic Command are looking into the incident and believe it was caused by the failure of a computer component, Marine Corps Col. Dave Lapan, a Defense Department spokesman, said Wednesday.
"Based on our understanding of the situation right now, as the Air Force has described it, it was not a significant disruption; it was a technical problem," Col. Lapan told Pentagon reporters.
The communications failure is the latest in a series of nuclear mishaps that have plagued the Air Force in recent years.
Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Vician said the break occurred early Saturday and lasted less than one hour. The White House was briefed about the failure Tuesday morning.
There was no evidence of foul play, officials said.
The Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles are part of the 319th Missile Squadron stockpiled at Warren Air Force Base near Cheyenne, where 150 ICBMs are located. The failure affected 50 of them, or one-ninth of the U.S. arsenal. ICBMs at Air Force bases in Montana and North Dakota were not affected.
The equipment failure disrupted "communication between the control center and the missiles, but during that time they were still able to monitor the security of the affected missiles," Col. Vician said. "The missiles were always protected. We have multiple redundancies and security features and control features."
The launch control center computers communicate through an underground cable. Col. Vician could not confirm that the cable was the source of the problem.
He said base personnel inspected all 50 missile sites and found no evidence of damage.
