US nuclear missiles go offline, hardware glitch cited

WASHINGTON. October 27. KAZINFORM US President Barack Obama has been briefed about a suspected hardware glitch that took 50 of America's 450 nuclear inter-continental missiles (ICBMs) off-line for about 45 minutes, US officials said on Tuesday; Kazinform refers to China Daily.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said this appeared to be very similar to two previous incidents, both of which occurred more than a decade ago.

The latest incident took place on Saturday morning at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, one of three bases hosting the US arsenal of Minuteman III ICBMs. The other two are in the US states of North Dakota and Montana.

"We think it has happened before. How often or whether this is the biggest ever, I don't know. That's why we're looking into it," the official said.
No computer virus or outside actors were believed to be behind the glitch and the missiles could have been launched, if necessary, by activating back-up systems, the official added.

"We have no indication that this was intentional," the official said, dismissing the chances it was the result of a cyber attack or sabotage. "There's no indication of anything like that."

One of the five launch control centers responsible for the 50 missiles operated by the 319th Missile Squadron apparently tripped up communications signals between the missiles and the centers.

The official blamed a hardware problem investigators have broadly identified but are still trying to pin down.

It took 45 minutes for the first launch control center to re-initiate contact with the missiles, and another 15 minutes for the other four centers to do the same; Kazinform cites China Daily.

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