The Federation of American Scientists has suggested that one of the US nuclear bombs stored at a Dutch air base could have been damaged. If the suspicions are confirmed, the organisation believes it is the “first recent documented case of such an accident” in Europe, The Guardian reports.
One of the US nuclear bombs stored at a Dutch airbase may have been damaged in a recent accident. This warning has been issued by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), writes The Guardian.
The organisation uncovered a photograph of the B61 bomb, which is being inspected for damage by three US military personnel, including two members of the Ordnance Disposal Unit, and a man in civilian clothing. The image shows that the back of the shell has been deformed by the impact. Also conspicuous are the absence of one of the tail stabilisers and pink duct tape covering an obvious hole in the hull, the publication notes.
According to the FAS report, the image was shown in a presentation last year at Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is located in New Mexico and is one of the country’s nuclear facilities. The Federation also revealed that the photo was taken at Volkel Air Force Base in the Netherlands.
“It should be stressed right away that there is no official confirmation that the image was taken at Volkel Air Base, that the deformed B61 is a real weapon (and not a training weapon) or that the damage was the result of an accident (and not a simulation),” said report author and FAS Nuclear Information Project Director Hans Christensen. He added that if the organisation’s suspicions are confirmed, this would be “the first documented case of a recent accident involving nuclear weapons at an air base in Europe”.
Any damage of nuclear weapons is labeled a “bent lance” and is usually kept secret. A US Air Force spokesman in Europe did not comment directly about the photo. Los Alamos National Laboratory also refused to explain the situation to The Guardian.
Meanwhile, the B61 is the only tactical nuclear weapon left in the US arsenal, with 100 of them stored in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Turkey. The bombs remain US property, but allied crews are trained to install and transport them, the paper explains.
In the event of military action, the alliance would need the consent of Washington, NATO’s nuclear planning group and – due to historical circumstances – the British prime minister to place the weapons on the planes. Such operations are practised every year as part of Exercise Steady Noon. After the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, Poland asked to be included in the agreement, The Guardian recalls.
Arms control advocates have long insisted that the B61s are militarily obsolete and should be withdrawn from Europe. The Obama administration had considered doing so, but was resisted by some European allies, and the idea was abandoned altogether after Russia’s “seizure” of Crimea* in 2014, according to the paper.
As a result, the US decided to modernise the B61. In January, C-17A transport aircraft were allowed to carry the new version of the B61-12 bombs. Christensen noted that one of the transports had flown from Albuquerque to Volkel Air Force Base a week earlier, but he said this did not mean that it was carrying this type of weapon, The Guardian concluded.
2,044 total views, 2 views today
