CARGOES OF DOOM; EXCLUSIVE: How radioactive uranium is flown over

PLANE-LOADS of deadly nuclear bomb parts are being regularly flown over Britain's towns and cities.

The cargoes are loaded onto ageing RAF jets and flown to the States after being transported in heavily-guarded lorry convoys.

But the containers used to carry the radioactive material - known as fissile - are only guaranteed to survive an impact of up to 30 feet.

Each convoy - and there have been between 30 to 40 since 1993 - carries four barrels of highly enriched uranium - the core material for making Trident missiles.

The slightest drop of uranium can cause cancers.

The last convoy, on April 2, did not turn any heads as the two lorry loads - accompanied by police motorbike outriders and armed units - drove through the countryside from the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, Berks, to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.

In Germany a month ago thousands of protesters turned out to blockade a nuclear waste train.

The nuclear cargoes are flown to the Los Alamos laboratories - birthplace of the A-bomb which destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the Second World War and starting the Cold War. On a Dangerous Air Cargo shipping certificate the loads are addressed simply to Mr J Williams, Los Alamos National Laboratories.

There, the nuclear material is analysed for purity to make sure it comes up to scratch for use in the Trident missiles.

The planes used to transport the cargoes are VC-10s - one of the British military's oldest aircraft

At least six times a year, using busy flightpaths round London and the South East, they then fly over the Cotswolds and South Wales before crossing the Atlantic to Kirtland Air Force Base near Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Once analysed, the radioactive material is flown back to Brize Norton and is either returned to the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, or to Burghfield, where Britain's Trident nuclear weapons are made.

Cargo documentation suggests that until last month's flight the nuclear cargo planes were banned by the US from flying direct to New Mexico.

Because the British containers do not reach US safety standards - they are only tested to withstand impact with a concrete motorway bridge support at top speed - the planes were instead forced to land at the first military strip available - Dover Air Force base in New York State.

There the containers had to be swapped over. Greenpeace disarmament co- ordinator William Peden said: "The likelihood of these containers withstanding a plane crash is minimal.

"We now have formal confirmation that the types of containers used are grossly inadequate.

"We know where they go, we know why and we know what they carry.

"This investigation by The Sunday Mirror clears away the fog of secrecy that has surrounded these flights for years.

"It is clearly insane to fly these nuclear cargoes over heavily populated areas."

He added: "The bottom line in all this is that Britain does not have an independent nuclear deterrent and we are very much reliant on US aid to keep our bomb alive.

"These flights have now been exposed as carrying plutonium and uranium in grossly inadequate containers over a large swathe of Britain and the US - just to prop up the British nuclear weapons programme."

Last night a Ministry of Defence spokesman said he could not comment on the routes taken for the movement of nuclear weapons for security reasons.

"The movement of nuclear materials is done so under very strict safety procedures," he said. "The containers used also adhere to strict safety guidelines."

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