Nuke Workers Taped Explosive Components

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-exec/2004/jan/24/012402303.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - Workers dismantling an aging nuclear weapon improperly secured broken pieces of a highly explosive component by taping them together, federal investigators found. An explosion could have occurred, they said.

The incident was among several recent safety lapses at the Energy Department's Pantex plant near Amarillo, Texas, noted by the independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Last fall, workers taking apart another old warhead accidentally drilled into the warhead's radioactive core, forcing evacuation of the facility.

<snip>

If the explosive were still connected to the trigger, an explosion could have injured or killed workers and could have spread plutonium or other radioactive materials around the facility.

<more>

[xultar]

1. Who is it that wants to move this stuff to NV? Can't you just see

this nukey shit tied with ropes to the backs of flat bed trucks and stacked on rickety trains criss/crossing the country right through all of our neighorhoods and cities.

tee hee hee, taped the nukey stuff :nuke: I'm crackin up down here in GA!

[treepig]

6. i wasn't aware that waste from the weapons program was going

to nevada.

but perhaps you have inside information i'm not privy to?

[oneighty]

2. Sounds like

BS. Nuclear explosives are very insensitive.

180

[ArmchairActivist]

3. I don't think the story is implying a nuclear explosion...

...but rather the 'regular' explosives used to initiate the chain reaction going off due to mishandling, and then scattering the bomb bits througout the area...

-AA

[Robb]

4. Yeah!

They never seem to give any thought to my needs!! :D

kiddin'!

[Don_G]

5. Isn't That Welcome News

Plutionium lasts forever but the shaped C-4 charges in charge of the physics of the event "dosen't" have the same half-life?

Why do I feel the Federal Government is trying to achive the same result as Al-Queda?

[LostInTheMaise]

8. Do you know what radiation does to carbon based explosives?

It decays them and they must be replaced. No stupidity here.

Some newer classified polymer chain explosives do a better job.

[Cronus Protagonist]

7. So they hired Homer Simpson for that project?

If not, it does seem like he would fit in well with that bunch of retards.

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