[14], In September 2013, Eric Schlosser published a book titled Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. Airmen Jeffrey Plumb and David Powell were in the silo working on the missile. You may also know that it was an important location during the Cold War, a difficult time in the US and World History. We always take Highway 71 South taking us through Kimball, Nebraska and Limon, Colorado coming out at Highway 25 at Trinidad, Colorado. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard with the Class of 1990. President Ronald Reagan announced the retirement of the Titan II program, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. KGFL, Sid Kings radio station, had a daytime-only license, but this was a big enough exception that King was on the air by 3:30 a.m., telling everyone to get the hell out of there. By 4 a.m., the studio was full of people and a flurry of activity. [5] The 8lb (3.6kg) socket fell off the ratchet and dropped approximately 80 feet (24m) before bouncing off a thrust mount and piercing the missile's skin over the first-stage fuel tank, causing it to leak a cloud of its aerozine 50 fuel. "Some people get a little nervous down here. As if they didn't have enough to worry about. His 4-year-old great-granddaughter held the calf in the passenger seat, trying to hug it back to . Workers from . trademark, including the use of official emblems, insignia, names and slogans), warnings The first U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), like the Atlas and the Titan I, were cryogenically fueled, relying on substances like liquid oxygen, which had to be kept cold. NORTHERN WELD COUNTY If it weren't for the 184-foot tall antenna tower stretching far above the prairie, many . The Titan II missile program was terminated by the Reagan administration, but memories still burn brightly among many Arkansans. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Christ explained that the deaths were not caused by the explosion itself, but by the rapid loss of oxygen. If you need to flag this entry as abusive. Missile Site 8 in Green Valley, Arizona, is a national historic landmark and the home of the Titan Missile Museum. It was time-consuming and costly, but thanks to GTs determination to recover and preserve some history, you can experience it firsthand by touring or staying the night at Titan Ranch. He gave us a key to Room 20. By then, a lot of the documents detailing just how bad the incident wasand how close wed come before to accidental nuclear explosions had been declassified. When the socket fell, it plunged 70 feet to pierce the side of the . All three floors of the LCC do not actually connect to the walls and are instead suspended from the ceiling, reminiscent of a giant birdcage. Founder, Native American Journalists Association. [18], Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}352451N 922350W / 35.4141N 92.3972W / 35.4141; -92.3972. Missile Guidance Speed Image AIM-7 Sparrow: Semi-active radar homing: Mach 4: AIM-9 Sidewinder: Infrared homing: Unverified (Mach 2.7) AIM-120 AMRAAM: Active radar homing: We depend on ad revenue to craft and curate stories about the worlds hidden wonders. The Damascus Titan missile explosion (also called the Damascus accident) was a 1980 U.S. nuclear weapons incident involving a Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). We hurriedly put our food away, closed the hatchback and put some distance between ourselves and the pasture. The fire started whena high-pressure hydraulic line was cut by anoxyacetylene torch. When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into space in 1957, it made the idea of long-range nuclear bombers obsolete. Titan Ranch, located at 23 Missile Base Road in Vilonia, Arkansas, offers renters the chance to spend a night underground in a converted intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) facility. The silo which housed the Gemini missile is sealed off and still remains destroyed. In 1965, dozens of people died after a fire started in a Titan II silo in Arkansas. He's the author of two books, and his byline has appeared in Deadspin, Jalopnik, CityLab and POLITICO, among other places. The missiles were shipped off to a base in Utah, and the silos were destroyed. "So you work on things when you can. (Not coincidentally, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee at the time the missiles were installed was Arkansas Democrat Wilbur Mills.) Because their vapor detectors indicated an explosive atmosphere, the two were ordered to evacuate. The missiles were stored in massive underground silos, which were constructed in the early 1960s and closed in the early 1980s. A missile took 15 minutes to launch and had to be fueled with a highly flammable mix of kerosene and liquid oxygen. Incredible Active Missile Silos In Arkansas Ideas. Many were built in Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota. Senator David Pryor's office had been concerned about the safety of the Titan sites since January 1978 when a cloud of toxic vapor was accidentally released at the Damascus launch site, resulting in four hospitalizations. 5 Specifications. Frustrated, Mondale had to call Secretary of Defense Harold Brown and pull rank, saying, Goddammit, Harold, Im the vice president of the United States, to find out it was, in fact, carrying a nuclear warhead. There are 1,000 kilotons in a megaton). The space has been turned into a luxury master bedroom, complete with an open concept walk-in shower, soaking tub, and enclosed toilet room. (Kennedy died in 2011 at the age of 56.) The nuclear warhead was also ejected from the missile silo. There are not many food options close by, and besides, who else can say they cooked themselves dinner in a missile silo launch control center? Decommissioning the former missile silos included destroying the top 25 feet of each silo and the access portal and elevator to the LCC. If you saw footage from the massive explosion in Beirut this past August, King says, you saw what he saw that morning. On September 19, 1980, a second tragedy struck the 308th Strategic Missile Wing. That made the trip well worth the bumps along the way. He said, "The same as it was when you came in." It has been painstakingly restored by GT Hill. The aim was to bring the weapon right up to the point where it could be launched, without actually sending it off: They needed to know the missile would be ready to use in attack, if needed. King decided to hang around. "TheThree Side" 373-1: 373-3: 373-2 . In 1978, six months after the trailer leak in Arkansas, two airmen died after a leak in Kansas. The missile sites in Arkansas fanned out from the base into Cleburne, Conway, Faulkner, Van Buren and White counties. Theres a unique history surrounding Little Rock, Arkansas that you may not know about. Bottom: Damascus after the explosion. The demon core that killed two scientists, the underground test that didnt stay that way, One man died and more than 20 others were injured. After getting the last fly out of the car, we hoped, everything went as planned. Your email address will not be published. You can see the locations of all silos on the ICBM History page. What Happens When a Giant Nuclear Missile Accidentally Falls Back Into Its Silo. By comparison, a house my be blown down by 5 psi of pressure, he said. Matthew Kroenig, a Defense Department adviser during the Trump administration, suggested in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed that "the Pentagon should . Like us on Facebook to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. Missile nosecones from Titan IIs in Arkansas are dismantled. I just hope it doesnt hurt., After what seemed like an eternity of silence, Kennedy could be heard on the radio saying, Im dying.. Our destination in the vicinity of this sleepy little town was an enormous subterranean Dvina missile silo complex, once the home of R-12 medium-range ballistic missiles (NATO designation: SS-4 Sandal) of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. The two airmen had just left the missile silo to await further orders when the rocket exploded at 3 a.m. A welder accidentally hit a hydraulic fluid line with his welding rod, which sparked a fire that quickly filled the missile shaft and sucked the oxygen out. But spend any amount of time here and you'll forget that you're underground," he said. Copyright 2023, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. Suddenly the flies began to land on everything and in the process they flew by the hundreds into the back of our SUV. Theyd heard on the scanner there was something going on at Missile Complex 374-7, the Titan II Missile installation in nearby Damascus. Air Force personnel were evacuated, and a civilian evacuation soon followed as concerns grew that the empty fuel tank could collapse and bring the rest of the rocket and missile down on top of it. The large master bed appears to be floating above the floor, thanks to a creatively designed cantilever. In a Sept. 12, 2014 photo, Teri Kramer points out an escape hatch over from www.washingtontimes.com. In 1981, by Presidential order, all 54 of these missile silos were to be dismantled and abandoned by 1987. All rights reserved. Each of the mammoth doors can withstand 1,000 psi of pressure, Hill said. In 1965, a civilian welder working on upgrades in an Arkansas silo accidentally hit a hydraulic line, causing a fire that killed 53 of the 55 workers there that day. Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is the editor and publisher of Native Sun News. The first missile silo was listed in november 2019 for $395,000, and sold for $420,000. Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living near Glen Rose in rural Hot Spring County. It is eerie to see military vehicles and military personnel going to and from these scary silos in the middle of wheat country. The incident began with a fuel leak at 6:30 p.m. on September 18, and culminated with the explosion at around 3:00 a.m. on September 19, ejecting the warhead from its silo. Originally, the launch control center had standard steps to reach multiple levels. Today, theres still a giant hole in the ground, now overgrown and given over to wild animals. The blast completely destroyed the silo and sent the 750-ton silo door . As my stepdaughter Sarah, a rodeo girl, used to say about the distance between Rapid City and Faith, South Dakota when asked the distance, "About as far as you can drive and 20 miles more." For us, there were two, queen size beds set up for my children. John Hooks Well, first we got to dig into how they got here in the first place. Sequential photographs showing the launching of the Titan II ICBM weapon firing from underground silos, circa 1965. A WWII Bomb Has Been Found at the Fukushima Nuclear Site, Dozens of Previously Hidden Nuclear Test Videos Declassified, Uploaded to YouTube, In the 1960s, Telegraph Poles Were Equipped With Nuclear Bomb Alarms, Decades Ago, the U.S. Military Set Off a Nuke Underwater, And It Went Very Badly. This was the first missile site to become operational in Arkansas in 1963. The last active duty Titan II silo, she went off alert 5/5/87: 373-9 This site is currently for sale for $85K according to www.missilebases.com: 373-7 "The Four Side" Titan I missiles were stored in silo lifts and had to be raised to the surface to be fueled before launch. Miraculously, only one person died: Livingston, in a local hospital the day after the explosion of pulmonary edema, sometimes called dry drowning. Six Young Women of Color Making a Difference in Arkansas, Crystal Bridges 2023 Exhibitions Unveiled, Things To Do In Independence and Stone Counties, KOKY: The Peoples Station in Little Rock, This Month in Arkansas History: September | Only In Arkansas, Military Bases in Arkansas - Only In Arkansas. Layer by Layer: A Mexico City Culinary Adventure, Sacred Granaries, Kasbahs and Feasts in Morocco, Monster of the Month: The Hopkinsville Goblins, Writing the Food Memoir: A Workshop With Gina Rae La Cerva, Reading the Urban Landscape With Annie Novak, How to Grow a Dye Garden With Aaron Sanders Head, Making Scents: Experimental Perfumery With Saskia Wilson-Brown, Indigenous Desserts of Turtle Island With Mariah Gladstone, University of Massachusetts Entomology Collection, The Frozen Banana Stands of Balboa Island, The Paratethys Sea Was the Largest Lake in Earths History, How Communities Are Uncovering Untold Black Histories, The Medieval Thieves Who Used Cats, Apes, and Turtles as Accomplices. The master suite is on the very top floor of the birdcage and is housed in what used to be crew quarters. These sites stayed active until President George H.W. document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Only in Arkansas. "But that was part of the psychological training. More adventurous souls can use the escape hatch to leave the facility when they check out. The Air Force also chose two other states to site Titan II missiles: Arizona and Kansas. This isnt ancient history, Schlosser, who wrote Command and Control, the seminal book about the Damascus incident and the history of nuclear weapons in America, tells Popular Mechanics. Delta- 09 was believed to be assigned the name "Cassandra's Missile . The Strategic Air Command facility of Little Rock Air Force Base was one of eighteen silos in the command of the 308th Strategic Missile Wing (308th SMW), specifically one of the nine silos within its 374th Strategic Missile Squadron (374th SMS), at the time of the explosion. The site is also booked for a wedding later this year. Itll be in a port in a shipping container or something like that.. There still wasnt any official word about what was going on, but they all put on rocket fuel handlers coverall outfits (RFHCO)rubberized protective gear that resembled space suitsand walked to the silo, which had been filling with corrosive and potentially explosive vapor for hours. [1][15][16] A documentary film titled Command and Control from director Robert Kenner, based on Schlosser's book, was released on January 10, 2017. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. Ultimately, the Titan system was declared to be essentially reliable, though minor changes were recommended. Like Atlas Obscura and get our latest and greatest stories in your Facebook feed. As was the case with the Pangburn disaster, the explosion at the Damascus launch site resulted from routine maintenance work. After the missiles were retired, they were again used as space launchcraft until the last one was launched in 2003. At about 6:30 p.m. Sept. 18, 1980, an airman working on the missile dropped a wrench socket, which fell 80 feet before hitting and piercing the rocket's first-stage fuel tank, causing a leak, but not an immediate explosion. (By comparison, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was around 15 kilotons, and the one dropped on Nagasaki was around 21 kilotons. But the site King and Phillips were driving to in their company Dodge Omni was worse. After a decommissioned Titan II missile silo in Arizona was sold in just two weeks late last year, two more desert silos . Visitors to Titan Ranch stay inside the former ICBM facility's launch control center (LCC), located 50 feet underground. Since that time there have been hundreds of Atlas, Titan, Minuteman and Peacekeeper sites constructed all the way from Texas to North Dakota, New Mexico to Montana. Mark Christ set the stage: "Senior Airman David Livingston and Sergeant Jeff K. Kennedy then entered the launch complex early on the morning of Sept. 19 to get readings on airborne fuel concentrations, which they found to be at their maximum. The team started running the procedure for readying the missile for liftoff. Rex Peters was up to get a blood pressure pill.
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