Answer (1 of 19): Used to be in the middle of the countrywhere they were safer from sneak attacks. Suddenly the flies began to land on everything and in the process they flew by the hundreds into the back of our SUV. "Some people feel that the missile had a little bit of a bad omen, if you will.". The fire started whena high-pressure hydraulic line was cut by anoxyacetylene torch. [5], A 1988 television film, Disaster at Silo 7, is based on this event. It is eerie to see military vehicles and military personnel going to and from these scary silos in the middle of wheat country. The film was broadcast by PBS as part of its American Experience series. Along with bombers and sea-launched ballistic missiles, the Titan II missile program was a bulwark in the nation's three pronged-response to threats posed by the Soviet Union's large nuclear warfare capacity. There were tons of movie options for children and my kids had a blast watching Paddington on the huge white walls of the silo. The first disaster occurred on August 9, 1965 at launch complex 373-4, located near Searcy. Rex Peters was up to get a blood pressure pill. What to Know Before You Get Started, 4 Essential Tips for Applying for a Mortgage Online as an MBA Student. Ayala said Livingston, a native of Heath, a small town in central Ohio, would let him use his ham radio to talk to people in his hometown in the Bronx. The Doomsday Clock is at 100 seconds to midnight., The odds of a city being destroyed are probably the highest since World War II, says Schlosser. But somethinglater determined to be an elevator malfunctionwent wrong. I turned to Sergeant Green and said, Man, aint that pretty, before I realized what it was, Roberts said in a statement during the investigation. The first Titan II missile in Arkansas was installed in a silo near Searcy in 1963. It is eerie to see military vehicles and military personnel going to and from these scary silos in the middle of wheat country. Early in the morning of Friday, September 19, a two-man PTS investigation team consisting of Senior Airman David Lee Livingston and Sergeant Jeff K. Kennedy entered the silo. 2023 Atlas Obscura. Not that the Air Force was sharing that information. I can recall vividly the September 1980 explosion which destroyed a missile in its silo located near Damascus on the Faulkner-Van Buren County line. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. The Cold War was over, and with it the threat of annihilation right? As was the case with the Pangburn disaster, the explosion at the Damascus launch site resulted from routine maintenance work. The team had met its goal. The Reagan Administration decided to . Part of HuffPost Wellness. By 1960, teams at Cape Canaveral had run several successful tests of the new missiles, and a new facility, located at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, was ready to start testing out the missile under operational conditions. At the end of the 1950s, the United States military began developing the Titans as part of its growing supply of intercontinental ballistic missiles. While the warhead inside the rocket remained in one piece, preventing a nuclear disaster, the crew working on the site did not escape without harm: One man died and more than 20 others were injured. The elderly man behind the counter was a dead ringer for the man lying on a gurney in the movie Young Frankenstein who Gene Wilder, Dr. Frankenstein, assaults unintentionally while instructing a group of medical students. After a decommissioned Titan II missile silo in Arizona was sold in just two weeks late last year, two more desert silos . A look inside Level 2 of the Titan Ranch in Vilonia, a decommissioned Titan II nuclear missile facility, featuring two-queen sized beds and a spiral staircase. One can visualize men in uniform going about their business far below the surface of the earth, manning and maintaining the silos with their guided missiles armed with nuclear warheads smack in the middle of Colorado while cattle graze peacefully just outside of the wire fences enclosing the silos. The W53 thermonuclear warhead landed about 100 feet (30m) from the launch complex's entry gate. (By comparison, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was around 15 kilotons, and the one dropped on Nagasaki was around 21 kilotons. Janet Choate: An Everyday Hero of Small-Town U.S.A. All too soon, it was time to check out. Soviet Ukraine held around one-third of the U.S.S.R.'s nuclear arsenal, most of . One of the strangest things about the master suite is the domed concrete ceiling. Visitors to Titan Ranch stay inside the former ICBM facility's launch control center (LCC), located 50 feet underground. I was living out of state at the time, but the disaster was covered in depth by the national press. ICBM Missile Silos - Newsthink Its worth it, I promise. The entire process of the opening, cleaning, renovation and updating is documented on his largely followed Titan Ranch YouTube channel, and I highly recommend checking it out. Today, theres still a giant hole in the ground, now overgrown and given over to wild animals. The missile silo near Pervomaysk is the only intact remainder of what was once an array of nuclear bases in Ukraine. Robert Rhodus, the test conductor for the company that had built the missile, watched in fascination as the elevator, carrying a missile fully loaded with propellants, plummeted to the bottom of the silo, Stumpf writes. While the Polaris, a solid-fuel missile, was developed at the same time as the Titan missiles for use in submarines, the military was attached to the Titan II for diplomatic reasons. The missile base I visited, Foxtrot-01, is right there on Google Maps. The Titan II missile program was terminated by the Reagan administration, but memories still burn brightly among many Arkansans. Why are there so many nuclear missiles in Montana? Despite the size of the explosion, no one was hurt in the accident: The second-set of recently reinforced blast doors held. The missile was not armed at the time. The Air Force refused to confirm or deny if a nuclear weapon was involved in the explosioneven to Vice President Walter Mondale, who was in Arkansas that day for the state Democratic convention, trying to help the states young governor, Bill Clinton, in a re-election bid. The idea is no longer to win a nuclear war, but to prevent one from starting, Chuck Penson, who recently retired as historian for the Titan Missile Museum in Arizona, tells Popular Mechanics. A socket like the one that punctured the missiles hull. At around 6:30 p.m. CDT on Thursday, September 18, 1980, two airmen from a Propellant Transfer System (PTS) team were checking the pressure on the oxidizer tank of a USAF Titan II missile at Little Rock AFB's Launch Complex 374-7. She believes magic can be found in life and books, loves to watch the stars appear, and still dreams of backpacking the world. A missile silo during the Cold War is now a popular, and high-rated, short-term vacation rental near Roswell, New Mexico. Oh yes, Jackie's checkup, despite her MS, showed her to be in excellent health. His book Children Left Behind was awarded the Bronze Medal by Independent Book Publishers. 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" The second airmen survived his injuries, while 21 others suffered injuries from the blast and following rescue operation and cleanup. [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. GT has renovated the second level to be a multipurpose space, complete with projectors, a sound system, party lights, multiple whiteboards, and tables and chairs if needed. A concussion of wind hit me like a truck, and I slid 60 feet, and every foot, it felt like I was going faster. After the missiles were retired, they were again used as space launchcraft until the last one was launched in 2003. He said, "The same as it was when you came in." https://www.dimoc.mil/resources/limitations, 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. Mondale and Jimmy Carter lost their bid for re-election in 1980. 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. Eventually, the missile combat crew and the PTS team evacuated the launch control center, while military and civilian response teams arrived to tackle the hazardous situation. Visitors to the site first descend down the 50 feet to a concrete pad, where they are greeted by the first of two 6,000-pound blast doors, one of which was kept closed at all times during the Cold War. 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. AddThis Utility Frame. He was a 19-year-old missile technician, a new trainee, riding with another guy, David Powell, who was showing Plumb the ropes. [2] The entire missile launch complex was destroyed. President Ronald Reagan announced the retirement of the Titan II program, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. Arkansas' missiles were manned and operated by airmen from the Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville, Arkansas, with air bases near Tucson, Arizona, and Wichita, Kansas, maintaining nearby Titan II silos there. "We never wanted to build rooms," Hill said, referring to the circular layout and feel to the LCC. The following is a list of active missiles of the United States military. Possibly a fuel leak. Jackie and I set out from Rapid City to Albuquerque for two reasons. It turned out a worker doing routine maintenance on one of the missiles had dropped a nine-pound socket. which pertains to intellectual property restrictions (e.g., copyright and To this day, those Titan II targets remain classified, he said. If the Soviets had missiles, then the Americans needed them, too. On September 19, 1980, a second tragedy struck the 308th Strategic Missile Wing. The air turned white and chunks of steel-reinforced concrete fell out of the sky after the fuel ignited. Cleaning Up America's Worst Nuclear Waste Dump, Why Russian Hybrid Warfare Failed in Ukraine, Titan II: A History of a Cold War Missile Program, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. Founder, Native American Journalists Association. America's Nuclear Triad - U.S. Department of Defense An official website of the United States government, 19th AW InfoSplash & Digital Bulletin Board, Sexual Assault Prevention & Response Office, https://www.dimoc.mil/resources/limitations, Hosted by Defense Media Activity - WEB.mil. Thats why a Propellant Transfer System (PTS) crew was in the silo in the early evening of September 18, 1980, at the end of a long day, pressurizing the fuel tank of the missile (which, in a morbid coincidence, was the same one that 15 years earlier was in the silo that caught fire). They would meet at the Air Force base in the morning and drive to the missile launch control silo to begin their work day. For us, there were two, queen size beds set up for my children. When I needed a break from writing the series, I found myself scrolling around Nebraska and Colorado, looking for silos and . I heard somebody yelling "Help me! We got some weird looks. Ultimately, the Titan system was declared to be essentially reliable, though minor changes were recommended. Designed by The Twiggs Group. Investigations including a congressional inquiry delved into the Damascus tragedy. Eric Ayala was topside, at ground level near the silo. Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety, National Register of Historic Places listings in Van Buren County, Arkansas, "Titan II Missile Explosion (1980) Encyclopedia of Arkansas", "Missile silo blast kills 1, hurts 21; no radiation leak", "Colonel Replaced in Action Linked to Fatal Titan Explosion", "Command and Control American Experience WGBH PBS", "Air Force truck removes damaged warhead", "Titan warhead flown to nuclear arms plant", "Season 4, Episode 4 Nuke Kids on the Block", "The night we almost lost Arkansas a 1980 nuclear Armageddon that almost was", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1980_Damascus_Titan_missile_explosion&oldid=1137032445, National Register of Historic Places in Van Buren County, Arkansas, September 1980 events in the United States, Nuclear accidents and incidents in the United States, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 2 February 2023, at 12:19. They dont know where the warhead is, King recalls being told. The facility was one of 18 underground Titan II missile silos in Arkansas that helped formthe backbone of the United States' nuclear arsenal from the 1960s until the 1980s. Extremist groups like to destroy cities. Delta- 09 was believed to be assigned the name "Cassandra's Missile . And around 3:05 a.m., all hell broke loose, he tells Popular Mechanics. Titan Ranch began hosting conferences and meetings in 2019, and added its AirBnB listing in November 2020. Titan II | Missile Threat "That's one of the very few things about the Titan IIs that remain classified," he said. 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. The countdown to launch started and thenright before the signal to ignite the rocket would have been givenit was stopped. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused! Basically, you crawl 10 feet and then it's a 50-foot ladder," Hill said. On the night of September 18, 1980, a Titan II missile carrying a thermonuclear warhead exploded in rural Arkansas. Around 1 a.m. on September 19, they watched a helicopter and a bus full of people enter the base. How far is it from Rockyford to Limon? Check out the other articles in the series: The demon core that killed two scientists, missing nuclear warheads, the bombs that fell on North Carolina, and the underground test that didnt stay that way. The facility's master bedroom, on Level 1, features a king-sizedbed and remote controlled fireplace. Within a couple hours, there was a crowd of about 25 to 30 journalists and law enforcement personnel gathered just outside the gate. A civilian crew was working throughout all nine floors of the missile silo, which plunged 150 into the ground. You may also know that it was an important location during the Cold War, a difficult time in the US and World History. Fortunately, the situation stabilized and the grim task of removing the bodies began. The missiles were housed in 54 launch sites located in three states; Arkansas had 18 launch complexes located in Faulkner, Conway, White, Van Buren, and Cleburne counties. By 9 p.m. the Air Force had a team on site and began evacuating personnel as well as some local residents. The four men at the silo were blown off their feet. Created with Sketch. These ICBMs were fueled with Aerozine 50, which allowed the fuel to stay in the missile while stored in its silo. Once clear of the silo, the second stage exploded. It took six years to retire the missiles, demolish the launch ducts and fill in the silos with debris. I enjoyed a cup of coffee in the master suite thanks to the in-room coffee bar and read a few more chapters. All rights reserved. The site was closed, and President Ronald Reagan chose to retire the Titan II missile program, announcing his decision a year after the Damascus Titan II missile explosion. Investigators later discovered that a welder working on level 3 had "hit a hydraulic line with his welding rod, rupturing the hose and causing the spray of hydraulic fuel to catch fire." Arkansas, and involved the missile exploding after the first-stage Aerozine fuel tank was punctured by a tool which fell from a maintenance platform near the top of the missile. The next morning, my kids enjoyed the donuts Id brought for them and another movie on the projector. 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. The United States built many missile silos in the Midwest, away from populated areas. (Not coincidentally, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee at the time the missiles were installed was Arkansas Democrat Wilbur Mills.) Perhaps most famously, as the investigative journalist Eric Schlosser recounts in his book Command and Control, in 1980, a Titan II missile exploded in its silo in Damascus, Arkansas, while carrying a nuclear warhead. Explosive era: Tour visits site where Titan II blast in 1980 sent You don't know who you were killing. This design allows the structure to absorb the force from a nearby nuclear strike, with eight giant springs serving as shock absorbers. Twenty years ago Kansas, Arkansas and Arizona were littered with nuclear missiles, ready to be deployed at a moment's notice. Email him at Arktopia.td@gmail.com. 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. Ed's daughter-in-law drove the pickup truck past the missile silo and out toward the cow pasture. The missiles were stored in massive underground silos, which were constructed in the early 1960s and closed in the early 1980s. It was sitting there at a moments notice, and putting the enemy on notice that they couldnt win the war.. Two airmen were performing maintenance at Missile Complex 374-7, located 3 miles north of Damascus, the evening of September 18th. Three of the Arkansas launch sites--in White, Van Buren, and Faulkner counties--have been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Vince Guerrieri is a writer based in the Cleveland area. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. There do remain some active missile silos, in montana, north dakota, and at warren air force base, which is in both colorado and wyoming. The first was for Jackie to have her annual Multiple Sclerosis checkup at the University of New Mexico's Pete Dominici Medical Building and the second was to have dinner with one set of friends and lunch with another. The Hami missile silo field is in a much earlier . Livingston lay amid the rubble of the launch duct for some time before security personnel located and evacuated him. By comparison, a house my be blown down by 5 psi of pressure, he said. The main theory is that when the vent switch was pushed, it sparked the explosion, Devlin says. Offer subject to change without notice. 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. 2023 Farmers Bank & Trust. The process was eye-opening, and a great history lesson. On Sept. 19, 1980, a silo near Damascus, Arkansas, exploded, killing one airman. The incident occurred on September 18-19, 1980, at Missile Complex 374-7 in rural Arkansas when a U.S. Air Force LGM-25C Titan II ICBM loaded with a 9-megaton W-53 nuclear warhead experienced a liquid fuel explosion . The Titan II, on the other hand, had a longer range and could be used for defense as well as for the nations nascent space program. The first missile launch facility was located in jersey shore,. He gave us a key to Room 20. Arkansas was home to 18 Titan II ICBMs in a missile field located north of Conway. After a half hourthey could only stay in the silo that long because of their oxygen tanksthey came back up. Little Rock, Conway, Searcy, Benton, Heber Springs, Fayetteville, Bentonville, Springdale, Fort Smith, Jonesboro, West Memphis, Batesville, Mountain View, Hot Springs, Pine Bluff, Texarkana, Arkadelphia. "There was metal debris, concrete, all sorts of stuff we had to pull out," he said. Crews of four men would work 24-hour shifts, followed by 24 hours off. Workers from . The Titan II ICBM Missile Silo 374-7 Site, located west of U.S. 65, 1.7 miles north of intersection with Arkansas Highway 124 near Southside in Van Buren County, is nationally significant by virtue of its unique and exceptionally important history within the Titan II program: it was the site of a September 1980 accident that severely damaged . Incredible Active Missile Silos In Arkansas Ideas All that was left to do was return the missile back to its silo and remove the dangerous oxidizer. Reports in the Arkansas Gazette described the devastation: "The inside of the 155-foot-deep silo was reduced to rubble and its concrete doors which weigh 740 tons were blown to pieces. On Aug. 9, 1965, a fire and the resulting loss of oxygen in a silo near Searcy, Arkansas, killed 53 people, most of them civilian repairmen doing maintenance on the facility. .css-v1xtj3{display:block;font-family:FreightSansW01,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-weight:100;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-v1xtj3:hover{color:link-hover;}}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-v1xtj3{font-size:1.1387rem;line-height:1.2;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:0.625rem;}}@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-v1xtj3{line-height:1.2;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-v1xtj3{font-size:1.18581rem;line-height:1.2;margin-bottom:0.5rem;margin-top:0rem;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-v1xtj3{font-size:1.23488rem;line-height:1.2;margin-top:0.9375rem;}}Why Russian Hybrid Warfare Failed in Ukraine, Meet the E-7 Wedgetail, the Air Forces New Plane, Report: Pilot Error Ruined a $112 Million F-35 Jet. During the next year, the other 18 missile silos in central arkansas received icbms, and jan. 5 megaton hydrogen bomb and was likely a target of the soviet nuclear arsenal. Since it was very hot outside I asked this cadaver of a man, "What's the temperature." The nuclear missile next door - MSN 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. "So you work on things when you can. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 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. The missiles were shipped off to a base in Utah, and the silos were destroyed. You can see the locations of all silos on the ICBM History page. In the early morning hours of September 19th, two airmen entered the complex to measure the airborne fuel concentration. Both areas were then filled in with concrete, scrap iron, gravel and dirt, and the property wasreturned to the previous landowners. First Security Bank, Member FDIC. 40 Years Ago, We Almost Blew Up Arkansas. The silo which housed the Gemini missile is sealed off and still remains destroyed. Nuclear Ukraine: Inside The Missile Base That Could Have Changed History But the effects of the explosion and working with the potentially toxic fuel linger for many of the airmen who were on site. (AP) For about 10 hours in 1980, the United States faced a nuclear threat of its own making after an airman performing maintenance on a Titan II missile dropped a 9-pound socket 70 feet, ripping a hole in a fuel tank and leading to an explosion that propelled a 9-megaton warhead out of the ground. A 1961 decommissioned Atlas-F intercontinental ballistic missile silo complex is for sale. We backed out of the room quickly and asked for another room. Follow us on social media to add even more wonder to your day. More than half of the potential arsenal is in Amarillo, Texas, at the Pantex plant, which will dismantle them. Last Titan 2 Silo Is Dismantled in Arkansas - The New York Times All rights reserved. Theres a unique history surrounding Little Rock, Arkansas that you may not know about. Titan II Missiles in Arkansas - Only In Arkansas