The British Ministry of Defence has admitted that materials used in nuclear weapons have been flown between the UK and the US 23 times in the last five years. The information was revealed in an answer to a Parliamentary Question asked by the Scottish National Party’s Westminster group defence leader Brendan O’Hara. Though the MoD did not give details, the flights are believed to have carried tritium, plutonium and enriched uranium, which are needed for UK’s Trident nuclear warheads. The shipments reportedly started or ended at the RAF base at Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. RAF Brize Norton base in Oxfordshire The Guardian reports: The flights have alarmed politicians and campaign groups, who are worried about accidents causing widespread radioactive contamination. The MoD, however, insists that the transports complied with stringent safety rules. The Guardian reported on 9 February that two MoD emergency exercises in 2011 and 2012 codenamed Astral Bend envisaged planes carrying nuclear materials crashing. One imagined a leak of enriched uranium and plutonium spreading up to five kilometres across south Wales. That prompted a question about the nuclear flights in the House of Commons last week by the Scottish National party’s defence spokesman, Brendan O’Hara MP. In response, the [...]