The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is better meeting aircraft requirements for the nuclear incident response missions it supports, the Department of Energy Office of Inspector General (IG) found in a May 18 report.
The report found that the NNSA has taken corrective actions since a 2003 inspection report found that the agency was not meeting its aircraft requirements for Joint Technical Operations Team (JTOT) missions and had no contingency plan for cases in which agency aircraft were unavailable. The NNSA’s JTOT offers technical support in the event of nuclear or radiological terror incidents, and three agency aircraft support this team’s missions, the IG said. The NNSA is required to maintain one aircraft, its crew, ground support, and maintenance personnel ready to launch up to four hours after notification of a nuclear or radiological incident, it noted.
The improvements cited by the IG include several memorandums of agreement and memorandums of understanding within the agency and with the Department of Defense (DoD) to increase emergency readiness response. Some of these agreements with the DoD outlined contingency plans tasking other government agencies with aviation support when NNSA aircraft are unavailable to perform emergency response missions, the IG said. The NNSA and DoD also signed a memorandum of understand that outlined the roles of each agency in the event of terrorist nuclear threats, including an agreement between the NNSA and the U.S. Army’s 20th Support Command that established roles for response to improvised nuclear devices and radiological dispersion devices. The IG made no formal recommendations in the report.