Another try

The Air Force Times rehashes the loose nukes episode, pointing at the safety record that showed a decline over the last years. The last Blog Simple post on this story quoted the AF Times on the database that was supposed to track safety incidents:

The response he received went only as far back as June 2001 because the ACC Safety database no longer has any records of Dull Sword incidents from 1992 to 2001, said Maj. Thomas Crosson, an ACC spokesman. Air Force officials could not explain why those incidents got deleted from the database.

The latest article puts a different spin on it:

The records Kristensen received in response to his FOIA request went back only as far as June 2001, because the Dull Sword ACC digital database was not created until 2005 as part of a mishap prevention effort, Gilstrap said. Before that, Dull Sword records were deleted once the problem was fixed, or two years after the initial report, he said.

So, the database was not created until 2005 and before that they were just deleted 'once the problem was fixed', or after two years. But why were there records that went back to 2001? Why would anyone destroy (delete is the same thing) records that reported on nuclear safety problems?

Congress and the press both seem uninterested in this issue, so frankly incredible stories can be reported and then ignored. Will the Air Force keep trying to come up with a better story, or will they hope that it just blows over?