US airbase e-mails go to town web

Mildenhall is a major base for the US air force

Confidential US Air Force (USAF) e-mails, some including flight plans for a presidential visit, have been mistakenly sent to a tourism website.

The e-mails were meant to go to the US airbase at RAF Mildenhall, Suffolk, via its website.

But instead they went to a town tourism website which had a similar address.

The USAF said there had been no "verified security breach" and it had advised airmen and other staff to use the correct e-mail address.

Gary Sinnott, of Mildenhall, set up the website "mildenhall.com" in the late 1990s to promote the town.

But by 2001 he was starting to get hundreds of e-mails meant for people at the airbase.

Flight plans

The e-mails included jokes, spam, personal information and military information.

He said he contacted the base a number of times, but officials told him not to worry about it.

But on one occasion, he said, when he told an official at the base about receiving information about presidential flight plans, the official "went nuts".

"That kind of information is not meant to be passed out to Joe Public," Mr Sinnott said.

He added that another e-mail he received was about US "military procedures and tactics".

"It had the notice 'Destroy by any means to prevent capture'," he said.

Mr Sinnott has now decided to take his website down to avoid getting these messages.

Master Sergeant Charles Tubbs, chief of media relations at RAF Mildenhall, said: "There has not been any verified security breach that warrants any action."

He added: "In 2004, The 100 Communication Squadron advised Mr Sinnott to block unrecognizable addresses from his domain and have an auto-reply sent reminding people of the official Mildenhall domain."