End of the Advanced Cruise Missile

Without fanfare, an excavator recently severed the fuselage of the Air Force’s last AGM-129A Advanced Cruise Missile during a ceremony at Hill AFB, Utah. Destruction of this AGM-129 completed the demilitarization of this cruise missile type and associated trainers, components, and engines “within budget and ahead of schedule,” according to an April 24 release from officials at Tinker AFB, Okla. Tinker’s Missile Sustainment Division, along with Tinker’s Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center and Hill’s Ogden ALC, began the process of destroying the AGM-129 inventory—some 460 missiles—in February 2008. The Air Force had opted to eliminate the AGM-129 fleet as part of US efforts to draw down nuclear force levels to meet the cap of 2,200 operational nuclear warheads imposed by the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty with Russia. B-52H bombers carried the low-observable, subsonic cruise missiles. (AGM-129A fact sheet)