US loses control of 50 nukes due to 45-minute power failure - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Pentagon chiefs were stunned to discover that a U.S. air force base had lost control of 50 nuclear, inter-continental missiles due to power failure. According to the Daily Mail, a ninth of America's nuclear arsenal went offline for 45 minutes on Wednesday. As multiple error codes appeared on the computer control system at FE Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, the Minuteman III missiles went into 'LF Down' status, which meant that officers were unable to communicate with them. Defence officials, however, insisted yesterday there was never any danger of an accidental launch. But the incident was deemed serious enough for Barack Obama to be briefed on it later. A U.S. Air Force spokesman said there had been a 'hardware issue' relating to an underground cable linking the control centre with the missiles. He added that this disrupted 'communication between the control centre and the missiles, but during that time they were still able to monitor the security of the affected missiles'. "The missiles were always protected. We have multiple security features," he said. There was no evidence of foul play and the U.S. never lost the capability to launch the missiles, he said.