Catalogue of safety defects at nuclear bomb factory
Official reports produced by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate,
and released to New Scientist magazine under the Freedom of Information Act,
have revealed a catalogue of up to 1,000 safety defects at the Atomic Weapons
Establishment (
Some operations are reported to have been temporarily suspended on the orders of the inspectors, but others have been allowed to continue after the Ministry of Defence insisted that the work is "necessary in support of the UK Strategic Deterrent".
Many of the problems relate to equipment and radiation-containment
structures used when nuclear warheads from Trident submarines are dis-assembled and tested, before being returned to the Navy
for deployment. One of the series of 12 reports reveals that an inspection this
April found that some of the "engineering fixes" which
* Article at http://technology.newscientist.com/article/mg19526223.800-nuclear-weapons-plant-should-be-rebuilt.html and reproduced in full at http://www.robedwards.com/2007/09/safety-warning-.html