Consolidated Nuclear Security paused dismantlement work on “one weapon program” last month at Pantex after a production technician lost her footing on a slippery spot on the floor of a nuclear explosive cell and “went down to one knee and one hand,” states a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board site representative report released Friday. It is unclear whether operations currently remain paused and what weapon dismantlement program was impacted. “We pause until fully confident our work processes and procedures appropriately address the issue and operations can safely resume,” Pantex spokesman George Rangel told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing yesterday in an email. All nuclear weapons designated for dismantlement make their first stop at Pantex, where workers remove high explosives from plutonium and highly enriched uranium. It was the second time in one month that a production weapon lost his/her footing performing an operation at the plant. In mid-July, a production technician stumbled while performing a special tooling lift, part of a nuclear explosive operation.
The July 24-dated letter states that the technician lost her footing outside of an “exclusion area” that Y-12/Pantex contractor CNS had implemented to address falling man hazards. A group of CNS subject matter experts recommended several corrective actions, including visual inspections to ensure that the floor and floor coverings are clean and not degraded and pathways are free of obstacles. According to the report, CNS initiated draft procedure changes after the event, and the Pantex site representative observed CNS training production technicians accordingly. Training included discussions on the changed procedure steps and simulations of the impacted work steps in a training bay, the report states.
