Pantex nuclear weaopns plant tests reveal public threat

Amarillo, Texas -- A nuclear safety agency is criticizing a contractor’s analyses of a theoretical high-explosives accident at Pantex Plant and said plant officials have not shown that specialized nuclear weapons tooling can adequately protect the public from a high-explosives blast.

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Chairman Peter Winokur cited a series of problems with plant contractor B&W Pantex’s “falling man” safety analyses in a June 2 report to Frank Klotz, a former Minuteman missile squadron commander and career Air Force officer who took over as administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration in April.

The NNSA and B&W Pantex have “not demonstrated that the special tooling used in nuclear explosive operations at Pantex adequately protects the public and workers from the potential consequences of a falling man event. ... Additionally, the board’s staff has identified several pieces of special tooling for which credible falling man scenarios remain unanalyzed,” the board noted in a June 2 report.

-snip-

“The accident of most concern for the falling man scenarios is detonation of the high explosives in a weapon. If that happened, the workers in the cell would be killed and the weapon would be destroyed, dispersing some of its nuclear materials,” Winokur said.

More at http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2014-06-15/pantex-tests-reveal-public-threat .