Hawaii hit by false alarm of a ballistic missile threat

[choxorn]

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/13/haw...listic-missile-heading-toward-the-island.html

Hawaii was rattled on Saturday after an alert claimed — falsely, as it turned out — that a ballistic missile was heading for the island.

Around 1pm Eastern, social media lit up with users in Hawaii who received cellphone alerts stating that a projectile was heading for the island. The message was accompanied by an ominous warning that the alarm was "not a drill."

The alert momentarily sent recipients into a panic, until Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard debunked it as a false alarm. Hawaiian officials, as well as the U.S. Pacific Command, quickly followed suit.

"State Warning Point has issued a Missile Alert in ERROR! There is NO threat to the State of Hawaii," U.S. Pacific Command's David Benham said in a statement.

Well, this was an.... interesting way to get woken up this morning.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Good thing D'ump didn't pick this up off Twitter, since he relies on that as a number one reliable news source he'd probably have shot back without feeling the need for any further confirmation.

 

[Hrothbern]

1983 was such a close call
One whereby a Russian officer deliberately did not report the readings of his radar higher up the line, because that would have triggered rocket launches.
He died last year BTW
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident

There was a goose close call as well IIRC in or close to Canada, misinterpretated as Russian.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

1983 was such a close call
One whereby a Russian officer deliberately did not report the readings of his radar higher up the line, because that would have triggered rocket launches.
He died last year BTW
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident

There was a goose close call as well IIRC in or close to Canada, misinterpretated as Russian.

While I acknowledge Petrov for making the right call there, the right call was the really obvious call to make. In 1983 "hey they launched ONE missile as a first strike" would have been the most inane report ever made. I also doubt the "did not report" part of the story. In all probability he would have reported "the system has erroneously detected something it thinks is a missile, as there is no indication of an actual first strike this is a pretty obvious error of some sort that needs to be investigated." The Soviets were on a "retaliate immediately on detection" footing, but they had to detect a first strike, not a one missile glitch, or even a four missile glitch, in their EWS.

We are in very dangerous territory now, since Americans have been lead to believe that North Korea might commit national suicide by launching a single missile "first strike," which is absurd on its face. We also have a president who might very well be among those who don't recognize the absurdity of that, so could conceivably retaliate against such an obviously incorrect report.

By the way, even if it were against a genuine "first strike" by an opponent able to do really serious, nation ending type damage, in the current era there is no reason for hair trigger responses. Even if it takes a couple hours and the entire United States is a smoking ruin by the time it happens, mutually assured destruction is absolutely assured. Funny how Fleet Ballistic Missile subs, in significant quantities, actually allow for easing back on that hair trigger. Maybe we should make sure that everyone has some.

 

[Mouthwash]

D'ump

I'm honestly not sure if this is an improvement on Dingbat Don.

 

[Hrothbern]

We are in very dangerous territory now, since Americans have been lead to believe that North Korea might commit national suicide by launching a single missile "first strike," which is absurd on its face. We also have a president who might very well be among those who don't recognize the absurdity of that, so could conceivably retaliate against such an obviously incorrect report.

I wonder when someone will use the near-reliability of police violence to deliberately have someone killed?
AP / Los Angeles Times, 29 Dec 2017 - Police investigate if false report that led to fatal shooting of Kansas man was a 'swatting' prank
Separate, but related question: If an armed hostage-taker was in that residence, is shooting the first person to answer the door really how a cop is supposed to handle it? I mean, if I ever take hostages, I'm having one of them answer the door for me, while I hang back with my gun to the other hostage. And I'm no criminal mastermind. At least, I don't think so. I guess you don't really know 'til you try, right?

If Trump is as easy to trigger as the police in this incident......

 

[choxorn]

But no name will ever be as good as Jon Stewart dubbing him "<Autocensorword>" von Clownstick"

 

[Catharsis]

I am gruesomely interested to know what your reaction (or that of others on the ground) was to receiving that alert @choxorn... pretty sure I'd just have a heart attack and die. Which would at least be an efficient way to get nuked.

 

[Naskra]

This looks more like a deliberate test of civilian response than an accident. The duration of the incident is rather close to a missile flight time.

 

[Hygro]

I’d be so pissed.

 

[Arwon]

I reckon someone is getting a reprimand over this

 

[stfoskey12]

This looks more like a deliberate test of civilian response than an accident. The duration of the incident is rather close to a missile flight time.

I have heard that it is unwise to say "THIS IS NOT A DRILL" when it actually is a drill.

 

[Evie]

Especially in Hawaii, where "this is no(t a) drill" are words with a significant history.

 

[choxorn]

I am gruesomely interested to know what your reaction (or that of others on the ground) was to receiving that alert @choxorn... pretty sure I'd just have a heart attack and die. Which would at least be an efficient way to get nuked.

A roommate and I spent about 5-10 minutes searching the internet on our phones trying to figure out what was going on, then started seeing things on social media that it was a false alarm. After a while it became "Well, not dead yet, probably not any missiles coming this way then" and finally, about 40 minutes after the initial warning, another emergency alert popped up on my phone saying it was a false alarm.

For others, they didn't know until the second message came out, so for them it was 40 minutes of being fairly panicked about the possibility of getting nuked instead of 10.

 

[Commodore]

I reckon someone is getting a reprimand over this

More than a reprimand. At a minimum it should be termination of employment. There should also be an investigation as to whether or not criminal charges should be filed against the person or people responsible for inciting mass panic.

 

[Samez]

My aunt and uncle live close to a nuclear power plant. (You can see the cooling towers from the garden)
When the plant was still operational there were regular nuclear incident drills where the sirens and other stuff was tested. Usually they didn't care mich about thouse drills but one day sirens dir not stop after a few seconds of test but continued for several hours. As it was way before the Internet no one knew for sure if it was still a test or a real nuclear incident. They were totally mortified and did even start packing stuff for a possible evacuation. The alarm eventually turned off and the local newspaper informed the people the next day that the button to turn the alarm off was simply broken and the regulatory procedures prohibited simply turning off the power of the alarm system.
I think this must have already been a creepy experience but a false alarm for a nuclear attack might be even worse - even though the error notification was a lot faster.

Regarding the 1983 incident:
Iirc back than the soviets already had an automated computer based retaliation system so it is well possible that he did not forward the info at all. If i am not completely mistaken back than the nuclear procedure was quite different to the US system with the nuclear suitcase - so while there were nuclear codes like in the US the distribution was automated and not eyclusivly tied to the soviet leader to prevent decapitation strikes.

 

[Zkribbler]

More than a reprimand. At a minimum it should be termination of employment.

Let's find out what happened before we wheel out the guillotine.

There should also be an investigation as to whether or not criminal charges should be filed against the person or people responsible for inciting mass panic.

An investigation = si. However, most crimes require intent. Most likely, that didn't happen here.

 

[Hrothbern]

The Kodak, Alaska THAAD system did a succesful test last summer, intercepting a rocket north of Hawaii.
Tests done earlier in summer with the SM-3 failed.
Another one early in 2017 with a SM-3 succesful.

There is at military level a lot of thoughts, incl cooperation with Japan, how to add a homeland radar defense at Hawaii, add rocket defense systems, how to improve in general the (Hawaiian) defense against NK rockets.

Though an ordinary mistake looks most probable to me, as part of some standard procedure (not really being a full scale drill),
I would not exclude anything:
from a bigger drill up to rocking the political sentiments to get money for systems.

 

[Catharsis]

A roommate and I spent about 5-10 minutes searching the internet on our phones trying to figure out what was going on, then started seeing things on social media that it was a false alarm. After a while it became "Well, not dead yet, probably not any missiles coming this way then" and finally, about 40 minutes after the initial warning, another emergency alert popped up on my phone saying it was a false alarm.

Nukes start flying and they're straight onto their phones... millennials

An investigation = si. However, most crimes require intent. Most likely, that didn't happen here.

But [and here's the standard I AM NOT A LAWYER qualification] there are crimes that don't require intent. If it's negligence, given the scale of the effect of that negligence, shouldn't that be enough to treat this as a criminal act? (Of course the person involved could prove that it wasn't negligence if they, say, weren't trained properly.)

 

[Commodore]

An investigation = si. However, most crimes require intent. Most likely, that didn't happen here.

There's also criminal negligence.

Let's find out what happened before we wheel out the guillotine.

Regardless of the details, someone messed up and it caused mass panic. A screw up that big costs you your job.