Two RAF Tornado fighter aircraft were "scrambled" over British Nuclear Fuels Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant during a five-hour security alert at the weekend, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed.
It is understood the aircraft, which are usually armed with Skyflash radar-guided missiles and Sidewinder infra-red missiles, were sent to the Cumbrian coast after Cumbria police received a telephone call about a possible threat against Sellafield at 6.30 p.m. on Saturday.
The BNFL site was not evacuated during the operation and the incident was declared over at about 11.30 p.m.
A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defence said yesterday the aircraft were scrambled on Saturday and that the alert was treated sufficiently seriously to deploy the Tornados. A spokesman for Cumbria police told The Irish Times that the telephone call was made "directly" to the police and not relayed through a third party.
Cumbria police refused to give details of the telephone call, but it is understood it is being treated as a hoax.
The Ministry of Defence said it was not known how long the Tornado aircraft were airborne over Sellafield, but "had it been for real it would have worked." British Nuclear Fuels declined to comment on the events but said it remained on the third highest security alert level - amber - following instructions issued to all nuclear installations and British government buildings by the Home Secretary, Mr David Blunkett, after the September 11th terrorist attacks. Airspace around Sellafield is strictly controlled. Private and commercial aircraft cannot fly over the nuclear installation but since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington fears have been raised that Sellafield could be a target for a terrorist 'spectacular.'
Earlier this month the environmental group, Wise Paris, published a report calling for the installation of anti-aircraft batteries at Sellafield to protect the plant against an air attack or sabotage. The report claimed that the long-term consequences of an accident, attack or leak at the plant's high level waste tanks could be worse than the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
The environmental groups, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, which will go the High Court in London next week to launch a judicial review of the British government's decision to approve the Sellafield Mox plant, said they were concerned about the security alert.
Mr Pete Roche of Greenpeace said if a terrorist attack was launched on Sellafield's high level waste tanks and 50 per cent of its material was released "you would get something 44 times worse than Chernobyl."