A post exercise report from the Director of the MOD convoy accident exercise Astral Climb in 2016 reveals that the scenario used was unrealistic and the whole exercise appeared more about ticking boxes than testing any preparedness to protect the public.
This nuclear transport emergency response exercise was conducted on Wed 22 June 2016 at the closed Longannet Power Station, Fife in Scotland.
The Directors report was obtained under a Freedom Of Information request submitted 30.3.2017 and received 24.5.2019 and it states that “The exercise was planned to test and demonstrate the Command and Control activities of the MOD Road Convoy Immediate Response Force (IRF) and to demonstrate their integration with the responding Civilian Emergency Services (CES).”
Exercise Planning was led by Nuclear Emergency Organisation & supported by AWE staff and planning meetings were held with the Scottish Multi Agency Resilience Training and Exercising Unit (SMARTEU).
The scenario was that a convoy having been diverted from its usual route (presumably the A1) is on the A199. As it approaches the junction with the A198 the driver of an HGV loses control and emerges from the junction into the path on the oncoming convoy. It collides with the third warhead carrier. 2 private cars and a small van were also involved.
This location is on a side road parallel to and about 50m from the A1 between West Barns and East Linton to the West of Dunbar. To our knowledge the convoy has never been on this road. The prevailing wind would conveniently blow any radioactive release across a few fields and out to sea. There are very few dwellings in the area although any change of wind direction would send a radioactive cloud over East Linton, Dunbar and a number of small villages in the area. The convoy travels through heavy traffic and urban areas on motorways. Why wasn’t the scenario an accident on the M74 in Glasgow, or the M9 in Stirling or the Edinburgh city bypass so that protecting and warning large numbers of people could be tested?
Although in the scenario the warhead is “disrupted” and partially explodes causing a release of radiation the Directors report states that “It was accepted by all agencies participating that the energy involved in such a collision would not be sufficient to cause a release of radioactive material and that the scenario was only being used to facilitate play”.
If the purpose of an exercise is to test the response to a nuclear warhead convoy accident then using a scenario that they can claim would not release radiation seems to show more concern for reducing negative publicity than protecting the public.
Even though the scenario being “played” was with a radioactive release there then appears to be no further reference to it apart from some people going on a Radioactive Materials Emergency Response Course in advance and that “The convoy decontamination was thorough. CES were processed as well as convoy personel”. There is no mention of protection of the public ie no efforts to warn people to shelter and take cover, or evacuate residents from the emergency zone. It’s not clear what modelling was done as part of the exercise to predict how the radioactive plume would spread.
The report says some responders were wearing just a paper face mask and that contamination levels close to the truck would be too high for this to be effective. However, the next point states that there are problems with communications when personnel have to wear respirators. There is no mention of whether members of the public ie casualties were given any kind of protection.
Command and control was established within 40 minutes: this seems a bit of a long time given that the convoy control vehicle is more or less on scene from the start.
Scottish Fire and Rescue deployed within 26 minutes – this sounds pretty good but we have no idea how far they had to travel or the extent to which they were pre-notified.
There were the usual problems with communications. The police couldn’t understand the convoy commander due to the respirator. Some previous problems were solved by giving the convoy crew a Scottish fire service radio.
Restrictions on the use of radios was not adequately briefed. This this could potentially be a serious issue. Mobile phones are banned in explosives handling areas (eg RAF Welford) as they are a detonation risk. There is research from the US that when nuclear weapons are fire damaged electric currents can flow through them in all kind of weird ways, so this may potentially be a safety concern if it could trigger the explosive to go off.
The MoD Co-ordinating Authority Executive Team were prepositioned before the exercise. This is the main source of MoD expertise on site for dealing with an accident. Given that it took them around 5 hours to get the team up from Bath for Senator 11, prepositioning the team is ‘cheating’ in a big way and raises a very serious question about how realistic the exercise was.
It does not appear that any actual nuclear warhead convoy vehicles were present at the exercise. An HGV and some cars were used losing any sense of a real situation with a 23 vehicle convoy with some uniquely constructed vehicles included.
Although the main objective was demonstrating a satisfactory response and the secondary objective was to provide training, at times it reads more like the exercises was mainly a training activity for Emergency Services than an assessed challenge.
Conclusion from Nukewatch
The MOD are now conducting nuclear weapons convoy accident exercises which don’t even pretend to test any measures to protect the public from a radiation release. In the past more realistic exercise scenarios still stopped short of actual evacuation and sheltering of the public but at least played out on paper how that might be done. For Astral Climb 2016 the MOD imagined a convoy on a back road (it never uses) nowhere near any population centres and they involved police and fire officers without even having any convoy vehicles present at the exercise. Nukewatch can only conclude that the MOD itself realise that a robust test of emergency procedures would always show that the public would be put at risk and therefore they have moved to an annual box ticking exercise with the minimum of information being released to the public.
The Scottish Government which observed this exercise and the Emergency Services that took part should be calling for more transparency about arrangements for protecting the public and speaking out if those are not in place. The scenarios for future exercises should be set by the regulators and civil emergency services to ensure that they are realistic and challenging. Of course the best way to protect the public is to stop transporting nuclear warheads on our roads altogether.
