The Albuquerque "Broken Arrow" Nuclear Accident | Hacker News Reader

The Albuquerque "Broken Arrow" Nuclear Accident

lflank.wordpress.com

106 pointsdxs56 comments

For any engineer interested in nuclear weapons, I highly recommend this three-part series produced by Sandia National Laboratory on their development of Permissive Action Link, the warhead’s electrical isolation and cryptological module that ensures US nuclear weapons will detonate if any only if authorized by the President.

It’s fascinating how they thought about bad path scenarios like thermal damage causing carbon tracking of PCBs potentially defeating the control system.

It is called “Always/Never: The Quest for Safety, Control, and Survivability”

Part 1: https://youtu.be/DQEB3LJ5psk

Part 2: https://youtu.be/sb2qo5m_hTY

Part 3: https://youtu.be/0a1exo_vU_k

... thank you. I didn't know those were floating around. I'd heard of them before, just hadn't had a chance to see them.

You’re most welcome. It’s so cool this level of detail is unclassified and open to all.

Small correction: The PAL doesn't handle presidential authentication. It's an extra layer of security to prevent a third party from detonating a warhead should they come into physical possession of one, and is (presumably) a static code which is integral to the operation of the weapon itself. Changing it would require complete reassembly of the warhead. The presidential authentication is handled by the missile crew, and the codes rotate daily. The PAL code is fixed and kept safe in the silo, where it is only accessed and input after the presidential order has been authenticated.

The presidential missile code was "00000000" throughout many years of the cold war.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/launch-code-for-...

I thought that was the PAL, not the presidential part.

Basically, engineers added a new layer of security, personnel on the ground promptly found a workaround. Nothing ever changes.

Well, as long as it wasn't stick by the silo entrance on the wall on postit we can call it an improvement, eh? I mean you have to at least remember the number of zeros required

> Basically, engineers added a new layer of security, personnel on the ground promptly found a workaround. Nothing ever changes.

Not quite - the highest levels of government added a new security layer and the generals in charge decided to work around it.

I hate to say it, but that article is inaccurately reported, and I cringe every time I see it linked. It conflates the PAL codes with the presidential launch codes, which are two distinct layers of security. Even if the PAL is hard coded to all zeros, you still need presidential authorization to initiate the launch procedure.

My understanding that this included warheads for bombers, so that maybe a bad actor could exploit it.

I suspect I have the same "nuclear archaeologist cyber-friend" as the author.

I sent a Twitter "friend" (who labelled himself a nuclear anthropologist instead of archeologist) a copy of a book called "100 Suns" by Michael Light, which is a coffee table sized book full of photos of nuclear tests. The book is eerily beautiful: http://www.michaellight.net/suns-intro

In return (and entirely unexpectedly) he send me a small package with a handful of small pieces of that Mark 17 bomb casing he collected in Albuquerque - just like that last pic in the article. They're sitting on a shelf with my piece of Trinitite and my pieces of Maralingite (sand fused to glass by an atomic test in the 50s/60s at Maralinga in South Australia)

I have some weird internet friends who know my weird interests...

His photographs are breath taking

http://www.michaellight.net/black-mountain

I‘m stumbling down a rabbit hole of pictures

Thanks for sharing, amazing photos. I actually have his book "100 suns" but haven't got around to check out his other works until now.

My browser didn't show the accompanying text at first for some reason, so I thought I was looking at some kind of experimental military base, so depressing "oh the workers get pools I guess they must be well compensated for working in such a bleak environment" and then at the end I click the (i) button and see it's a gated community for the ultra rich

Houses of the ultra rich usually are further apart, with much more space (green, forest, whatever) between them, not so densely packed.

The scars we inflict on our planet for the sake of pragmatism I can somewhat live with. It's for the sake of vanity that makes me sick.

Is it much of a scar? Only future archaeologists will know when they dig up rocks from our era 1000 years from now.

And the payoff has been no major war since 1945, despite infinite animosity and huge defense budgets on all sides.

I'm afraid you are preaching to the choir my friend, this is the platform of "entrepreneurs" after all.

I forgot about that book. I'd seen a copy years ago. I didn't have anywhere near the money to buy it at that point.

... and looking at used copies, I'm still not going to drop that coin on the book. But thank you, I didn't know there were some online copies of the photos.

If you're ever in Sydney Australia, you're welcome to look through my copy.

There have been many broken arrows¹. Each one is a terrifying and fascinating story and it's one of my favorite Wikipedia rabbit holes which I think everyone should be at least somewhat familiar with. At least to appreciate the real, terrible costs of developing, and then maintaining these weapons, in a high alert operational state, continuously for many decades. The fact that most of these accidents were classified and hidden from the public, for 20 or 30 years, is troubling. The military (correctly) assumed that they would lose a lot of public support had the truth been known at the time.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_nuclear...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accid...

You can also thank Curtis LeMay for maintaining the practice of 24x7 alert heavy bomber aircraft carrying live weapons many years after the point where they were no longer necessary, once long range ICBM tech had advanced to the point that a credible MAD deterrence force could be implemented by land based silo alert missiles and crews. By the late 1960s land based ICBMs were significantly improved from the early liquid fueled absurdities, and submarine based missiles were also advancing rapidly in range and reliability.

It seems insane to me that anyone ever thought that was a good idea.

It was a very profitable idea, either in actual $$$ or in access to power, for some. That is all that usually matters around here.

Airbases are in well known fixed locations. If your nuclear bomber fleet, and it's armaments, are all on the ground then it is entirely plausible that a sneak attack could decapitate the entire force.

If that's your only nuclear force, then you have suddenly and immediately lost the war, lest the successful enemy then proceed to simply bomb your cities with impunity.

The whole problem with nuclear weapons was you only needed a handful to annihilate the entire opposing force.

And the six-day war showed that destroying someone's air force on the ground can actually be done - twice, I think (Egypt and Syria).

Mind you, the US is big, and even ICBMs would take enough time, presumably even if they're fired from a sub just off the coast, that you could get some of your bombers and silo missiles airborne. Submarines are an extra layer of insurance on top of that.

The UK is not that big, so their backup is a letter from the prime minister in a safe inside the submarine, with instructions what to do if they find the UK has been destroyed.

Technically three times now, Israel in past few days wiped out any air force or air defenses in Syria. They moved the country basically to the level of say Afghanistan re air defenses, so they can do whatever they want. So can others.

Till current jihadists will agree with russians to have some pantsirs and S-300/400 on the ground for keeping their bases there and situation changes again. If russians can get friendly with Taliban they can be friends with anybody so thats just question of time.

Ugh, the U.S. supported the Taliban during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The current Syrian rebels, despite being partly a rebranding of Al-Quaeda, are supported by the U.S., which will recognize the new government under certain conditions:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-says-will-recognize-new-syr...

The regime change in Syria has been one of the primary U.S. foreign policy goals for decades. Of course, the Jihadists may turn on a dime and indeed cooperate with Russia in the future.

Ugh, the U.S. supported the Taliban during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The Taliban did not exist during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

If you can't get that right, after all these years -- how can you hope to make heads or tails out of whatever word salad you've been ingesting in regard to Syria?

Their precursors did. Where do you think they came from, and even more so who made that happen?

That's not how it works. Whatever you think is "really" happening in Syria -- you'll need to point to actual evidence in the current moment. Otherwise, it's just speculation.

I've been referring specifically to

> Ugh, the U.S. supported the Taliban during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

by ThaGf.

That is not speculation at all.

But one can extrapolate from that point onwards, following a certain behavourial pattern of one specific party.

Or maybe just reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art,_Truth_and_Politics

  https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2005/pinter/lecture/

which traces these patterns mostly trough South America, but there is some Iraq in there, too.

Anything else? Do ya wanna have some freedom fries with that?

The most you can get with that kind of "extrapolation" is some grounds for suspicion that something similar might be happening in the current day.

Meanwhile, my concern is with what is actually happening, you know, in current physical reality. Based in turn on some form of observable evidence. Not with what "might" be happening.

Which for some reason, seems to thoroughly flummox people in the "multipolar" crowd. It's like they've bought into this idea that events 40+ years ago establish a magical "pattern" that overrides any need to gather and ascertain the actual truth in the current moment (for example, in terms of what is happening in Syria).

So when we ask them why they believe US is, in actual fact, doing a certain bad thing (like causing regime change, say) in country X, despite no visible evidence of such -- it's become quite common for them to simply point out past shenanigans in other countries, and the resulting "pattern" that they see arising from such, as their "basis" for this belief.

"Iraq/Vietnam/Chile/etc, therefore everything the US does is also bad, therefore whatever is happening in country X today must be simply the US up to its usual imperial shenanigans, and if you can't see this you must be willfully blind or worse" is the apparent line of thinking here.

Which as a way of looking at things I find to be, well, rather weird.

Do ya wanna have some freedom fries with that?

No thanks, I've had enough junk food for today.

> Which as a way of looking at things I find to be, well, rather weird.

I don't, because up to now, maybe with a few decades delay, most of that 'batshit crazy conspiracy stuff' turned out to be true.

I'd call this 'evidence based'.

Most of that 'batshit crazy conspiracy stuff' turned out to be true.

I'd ask you to quantify -- but no one is saying, or even insinuating, that it's "batshit crazy conspiracy stuff". Only that they don't see any particular evidence for it.

The fact that you're making such an obviously ungrounded implication (or you don't see the huge difference between the two positions) suggests you've become unduly caught up in your own semantically confused internal dialogues.

I'd call this 'evidence based'.

Except it's not, and in fact you're engaging in very common form of faulty generalization.

If you say so?

shrug

No, because you made a strawman argument.

It seems you're also unclear as to what "evidence-based" actually means.

No. I've just grown very bored with people citing this and that over about five decades of living, which goes against my personal experience :-)

Of course this will confirm to you that I'm just a stubborn old fart, getting more and more senile and set in my ways.

But again: Shrug?

This is a safe space, and you can be as stubborn as you want to be.

I'm tired of citations as well. I just find that reality is often greatly more nuanced, and contains many more contradictions and exceptions than we might want it to be/have. That's why I tend to be a suspicious of broad, predictive patterns, and prefer to sit back and wait for the boring factual details to trickle in.

Either way, thanks for clarifying.

Which is why they tested air-launching a minuteman I back in '74. Tough to hit a C-5 in the air over the US with an ICBM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr2_cKfr8Sk

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Curtis LeMay was far from insane, to write off the thoughts of those who influenced early nuclear doctrine as insane doesn't do the topic justice.

The book Command & Control is a great read on nuclear doctrine.

But this is the whole concept of the "nuclear triad" -- bombers, land-based missiles and submarine-based missiles. It would be nearly impossible to stage an attack so stealthily that all three legs of the triad would be unable to respond. It's like keeping backups of your data in multiple places and/or on multiple media, a method of assuring recoverability when part of the solution inevitably fails.

It's the main reason that tactical nukes were removed from surface ships in 1991. When a carrier deploys, the airwing flies aboard. Then ordnance is loaded during underway replenishment. For the warheads, this was almost a full day of parts of the ship on lockdown with armed marines, while warhead cases were loaded. Suffice it to say that all of this activity was ripe for an accident or loss of a warhead (if the container sinks).

Having nukes on standby is one thing. Frequently moving them around is inherently problematic.

In 2007, the USAF mistakenly loaded six cruise missiles with live W-80 warheads on a B-52, flew it from North Dakota to Louisiana, and left it sitting on the runway overnight with the bombs. Additionally, they were not reported missing for 36 hours.

USAF also had a nuclear command general Michael Carey that was fired in 2013 for getting drunk with Russians in Moscow and talking crazy stuff. He was in charge of 450 missiles.

I believe the US sent 100 B-61s to Europe after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Tangentially related, I am reminded of this quote from the fun-yet-silly film "Broken Arrow" (1996):

Giles Prentice: A Broken what? Secretary Baird: Broken Arrow. It's a Class 4 Strategic Theatre Emergency. It's what we call it when we lose a nuclear weapon. Giles Prentice: I don't know what's scarier, losing nuclear weapons, or that it happens so often there's actually a term for it.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0115759/quotes/?item=qt0352487

Yeah but it's sort of a catch-22 isn't it?

"We have a Class 4 Strategic Theater Emergency, we lost a nuclear weapon."

"I don't know what's scarier, losing nuclear weapons or not being prepared enough for the situation that you don't have a code name and plans for the situation and you are risking operational security by transmitting the issue in the clear."

If you like reading about this sort of stuff, the book "Command & Control" is a fascinating read on the US nuclear weapons history, close calls, etc. It's dense, but well worth the read for a view into nuclear weapons "incidents" (to include some weapons losses, I don't recall if this story is in that book or not) during the cold war.

I agree this is an excellent book on the subject of nuclear weapons, also very well written and researched.

You mean the awesome 1996 classic action flick with Travolta and Slater, Broken Arrow? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115759/

That's the actual term for a bad accident. They're called Dull Sword, Bent Spear, Broken Arrow depending on severity.

> A Broken what?

> [...] It's what we call it when we lose a nuclear weapon.

> I don't know what's scarier, losing nuclear weapons, or that it happens so often there's actually a term for it.

The number of near-miss incidents like this, combined with the fact that we're still here standing, makes a pretty strong case for some kind of many-worlds "anthropic principle" / "quantum immortality" effect, IMO.

> “Do you have hot cargo aboard?” Meyer’s laconic response was, “Not anymore”.

Spoken like a capable engineer.

Now that’s a two sentence horror story I haven’t heard before.