The secretary of energy and the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration on Wednesday expressed condolences for the death of an agency security employee who helped move special nuclear material across the country.
Kristopher Youngberg, 41, died after a passenger van he was riding in last week along with four other Department of Energy employees collided with a dump truck on Interstate 40 near Okemah, Okla., then burst into flames, local television news station News On 6 reported Monday.
The station identified Youngberg and his four co-passengers as employees of the Department of Energy in Amarillo, Texas: the location of the NNSA’s Pantex nuclear weapons assembly-and-disassembly plant. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said Youngberg, who he did not identify by name, was a member of the agency’s Albuquerque-based Office of Secure Transportation (OST).
The five DOE employees evidently were not involved with a national security mission at the time of the accident, Perry wrote on Twitter.
Tragically, an OST agent was killed and four more were seriously injured in a vehicle accident while returning home from a training exercise. Our thoughts and prayers are with the OST team and their families in this time of grief.
— Rick Perry (@SecretaryPerry) October 10, 2018
Last week, NNSA lost a team member in a tragic vehicle accident that critically injured four other colleagues. Our prayers are with the five individuals and their families & friends impacted by this tragedy.
— NNSA Administrator (@LGHNNSA) October 10, 2018
The Office of Secure Transportation, located within the semiautonomous NNSA, moves special nuclear material between different DOE sites. Among other things, OST makes it possible for the agency to refill the tritium reservoirs of nuclear warheads, produce tritium in Tennessee using rods produced across the country at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state, and haul surplus plutonium to South Carolina for treatment that precedes its permanent disposal.
OST field employees carry Q-clearance, oversee transport of material over the roads in armored tractor trailers, and may use deadly force to protect shipments from security threats.
