Doomsday Plane’s Round-the-Clock Flights Called Off

With budget pressures building and the Soviet threat easing, the White House has ordered the virtual grounding of the Pentagon’s “Looking Glass” command planes that have been on permanent airborne alert since 1961 in the event of nuclear attack.

The decision, which took effect Tuesday at the Omaha home of the Strategic Air Command, marked the end of an expensive Cold War precaution and reversed an earlier decision to keep the doomsday aircraft aloft.

“This is an early first sign of some effort to put the nation’s strategic operations in phase with political realities,” said Bruce G. Blair, an expert at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. “It’s also an acknowledgement that we would have ample warning of any Soviet attack.”

The EC-135 aircraft, dubbed the Looking Glass, was designed to serve as an airborne command post in the event the Strategic Air Command’s underground operations center were destroyed in a nuclear war. At least one of the planes has been in the air at all times since Feb. 3, 1961, when the precaution was ordered in the aftermath of the Soviet downing of a U-2 spy plane.

Under the new system, one Looking Glass plane will stay on the tarmac round-the-clock at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, with a crew on “quick reaction alert” nearby. Upon warning of a nuclear attack, it could be in the air “within minutes,” Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams said.

At least once a week, one of the planes will conduct an eight-hour flight to maintain the readiness of the force.

Air Force spokesman Maj. Dick Cole said the change will reduce the service’s manpower requirements and save more than $18 million in 1991 and $23 million annually thereafter.

The White House decision came seven months after the President had overruled an earlier Air Force recommendation to discontinue the round-the-clock flights. At that time, skepticism about the revolution in the East Bloc was greater.

“It’s a different situation now than it was last December,” Williams said. “There’s a different budget situation, the situation in the world is different, and there would be more warning time” of a nuclear attack due to the scaling back of the Soviet military.

While the virtual grounding of the EC-135s is of symbolic significance, military analysts said it will have little practical effect. The United States has much more sophisticated surveillance equipment than it had when the flights began and has reduced its reliance on command planes for the control of wartime nuclear forces.