WASHINGTON (AP) — Sailors on the submarine USS Hampton failed to do daily safety checks on the ship's nuclear reactor for a month and falsified records to cover up the omission, a preliminary Navy investigation shows.
The revelation is sure to raise new questions about the military's handling of the nation's nuclear assets following an Air Force incident in which a B-52 bomber was accidentally loaded with nuclear-tipped missiles and flown across the country without any one realizing it for more than a day.
In the case of the Hampton, officials discovered that sailors in Submarine Squadron 11 hadn't done the required analysis of the chemical and radiological properties of the submarine's reactor for more than a month, even though a daily check is required, said Lt. Cmdr. Ryan Perry, a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon.