And the Launch Code is…

‘00000000’. According to this story (also featured on /., the 8-digit launch code to protect against a rogue missile launch was left at this trivial setting because commanders didn’t want procedure to get in the way of action during a war time situation. Carrying on with the scary but true theme I came across this comment in the same /. article

A flight attendant invited me to a party a few years back, and it was mostly pilots and flight attendants at the party. All getting sloshed, of course – pilot and flight attendants DRINK. Since most airline pilots started their careers in the military I got to spend a lot of the evening listening to ‘war’ stories.

One pilot I talked to used to copilot one of the two big planes (747s?) that they send up that can launch all the missiles remotely in case NORAD gets knocked out. He told a story about how they would run all these drills where they would scramble, get in the air immediately, and then get transmitted codes from the ground. They would unscramble the codes as “do not launch” and then return to base without transmitting anything to the silos, drill over.

According to him, on one of these sorties received the “launch” code in error. So they asked the ground to repeat the transmission. Which they did, and it was the same. So they took a chance and broke protocol and radio’d the ground and told them that they had just sent the “launch” codes, and did they really want them to transmit this along to the silos? Of course the ground told them to cease and return to base.

Scary truth or dunken bravado? Who knows.