Dig for Fossils in Northeast Texas. His book Children Left Behind was awarded the Bronze Medal by Independent Book Publishers. Today, the area is home to one of the most mind-blowing destinations in the state. Visitors actually drive over the top of the former missile silo on their way to the LCC. The Air Force-owned property houses the only remaining Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile complex left of the 54 that were active during the Cold War. Launch Complex 374-7 was located in Bradley Township, Van Buren County farmland just 3.3 miles (5.3km) NNE of Damascus, and approximately 50 miles (80km) north of Little Rock.[3][4]. Kennedy went down into the silo by himself to get readings. Jimmy Roberts and Donald Green saw the explosion. The Titan II missiles were the largest intercontinental ballistic missiles ever developed. This was the first missile site to become operational in Arkansas in 1963. This left the powerful nuclear warheads exposed to attack. Be sure to fill out all the fields in order to have yours selected. Part of HuffPost Wellness. Its worth it, I promise. Gear-obsessed editors choose every product we review. Extremist groups like to destroy cities. Kennedy, his leg broken, was blown 150 feet from the silo. He can be reached at editor@nsweekly.com. 2010 Native Sun News. 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. Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium. 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? These missiles had a range of 5,500 miles, but they required a high level of upkeep. [11], The launch complex was never repaired. Senior Airman David Livingston, one of the two airmen on the scene, died from injuries sustained during the explosion. In his official statement in the investigation, Kennedy said it didnt make sense: Why would you energize an electrical circuit in a fuel leak? Livingston flipped the switch and then came topside. Despite the size of the explosion, no one was hurt in the accident: The second-set of recently reinforced blast doors held. 75) of Scorpion is largely based on this event. which pertains to intellectual property restrictions (e.g., copyright and During the Cold War, Arkansas played a role in the protection of the nation by housing a series of intercontinental ballistic missiles across otherwise peaceful farmland. Placed on the western edges of the Soviet Union due to their limited range of 2,000 kilometers, the Sandals could . Ten years ago, Hill purchased the site that Titan Ranch sits on. During the next year, the other 18 missile silos in central Arkansas received ICBMs, and Jan. 1, 1964, all silos in Arkansas were active and on alert status. The situation was critical. Locked into a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union, the United States developed the Titan II rocket system in the 1960s to be the nation'sfirst missile that could be launched from an underground silo. The last of the Titan launch sites in Arkansas, located near Quitman in Cleburne County, was demolished on Nov. 19, 1986. "There was metal debris, concrete, all sorts of stuff we had to pull out," he said. Back in September 1980, September 18, Jeff Plumb climbed into his pickup and headed toward the nuclear missile silo near a tiny town in Arkansas called Damascus. AddThis Utility Frame. Maps to the LRAFB missile sites Be warned Arkansas Farmers aren't against shooting trespassers! What Happens When a Giant Nuclear Missile Accidentally Falls Back Into Its Silo. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. "When we designed this, it was designed for couples as a kind-of getaway space," Hill said. There was a lot of white smoke, Ayala tells Popular Mechanics, but it was hydrazine.. When I needed a break from writing the series, I found myself scrolling around Nebraska and Colorado, looking for silos and . The silos launch door was propelled over 600 feet from the launch complex. Bottom: Damascus after the explosion. 2023 Farmers Bank & Trust. About a half-mile down the road, Sgts. Copyright 2023, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. There are 1,000 kilotons in a megaton). 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. The Titan II missiles were located near three air force bases around the country: Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas and Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas. And around 3:05 a.m., all hell broke loose, he tells Popular Mechanics. But it doesn't come cheap at $600 a night but only if you can . The initial explosion catapulted the 740-ton silo door away from the silo and ejected the second stage and warhead. It's what happened on the journey that prompts this week's column. All that was left to do was return the missile back to its silo and remove the dangerous oxidizer. By 9 p.m. the Air Force had a team on site and began evacuating personnel as well as some local residents. Twenty years ago Kansas, Arkansas and Arizona were littered with nuclear missiles, ready to be deployed at a moment's notice. [14], In September 2013, Eric Schlosser published a book titled Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. The blaze occurred while the 750-ton silo lid was closed, which contributed to a reduced oxygen level for the men who survived the initial fire. 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. Theyd heard on the scanner there was something going on at Missile Complex 374-7, the Titan II Missile installation in nearby Damascus. However, the missile sites represented only 3 percent of the cooperative's annual sales of $26 million, according to a . Like Atlas Obscura and get our latest and greatest stories in your Facebook feed. Driving up to the ranch, you would never guess that youre headed to an underground missile silo. The missile was not armed at the time. Airbnb feels you, so now you can for $324 a night. The team had met its goal. He gave us a key to Room 20. What you may not know is that at one time, there were 18 ICBM (intercontinental nuclear missile) silos surrounding the Little Rock area. The Titan II's earth-shattering payload was 30 times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. "Every bullet and bomb used in World War II including the two atomic bombs was only half the yield of what a Titan II was capable of," said Titan Ranch owner GT Hill, who doubles as the facility's historian and tour guide. It's time for your real estate portfolio to go ballistic! But now, the socket fell all the way down the missile shaft66 feetbounced off the shaft mount ring, and hit the side of the missile, puncturing its eighth-inch hull. Here's what the terrifying incident . You know you're definitely in someplace different, but we wanted to make it nice enough that you didn't think you were in a silo.". Follow us on social media to add even more wonder to your day. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The first missile launch facility was located in jersey shore,. Please try viewing this website in Edge, Mozilla, Chrome, or another modern browser. The Reagan Administration decided to . Nodak, based in Grand Forks, served 55 missile silos around the region. Nobodys saying its from that, but nobody else in my family has a thyroid condition.. When in service, the 110-foot long, 10-foot wide Titan II missile carried the largest warhead the United States military ever placed on an ICBM. Unsettling as that history may be, its worth it just to say you did it. I heard somebody yelling "Help me! He called the station, and word spread. Misiles 46 views. Titan Ranch has a little gift shop with some fun coffee mugs and t-shirts and I bought my kids t-shirts. Livingston died of his injuries [later] that day." It was still dark outside early the next morning when we dropped the room key in the office mailbox and boogied down the highway eager to get back to good old Rapid City. In Arkansas, three launch sites remain with both launch pads and control centers. Will China Give Lethal Support to Russia? In 1978, six months after the trailer leak in Arkansas, two airmen died after a leak in Kansas. Once through the blast doors, visitors enter Level 2, which is the former operations center where the officers would initiate the order to launch the ICBM. 6. But this never happened. silo: [noun] a trench, pit, or especially a tall cylinder (as of wood or concrete) usually sealed to exclude air and used for making and storing silage. 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. 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 fire started whena high-pressure hydraulic line was cut by anoxyacetylene torch. Only two men escaped the silo, both telling stories of horror. It is a long and lonely route. [5] Powell later claimed that he was already below ground in his safety suit when he realized he had brought the wrong wrench, so he chose to continue rather than turn back. 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. Lucky for us, Nick was very knowledgeable and answered all of our questions. "We could excavate it, but if you think about it, it's like, 'Why?' The three-story facility previously housed a crew of four airmen two officers and two enlisted men who manned the site 24 hours a day and awaited launch instructions that thankfully were never issued. Winner will be selected at random on 04/01/2023. The large master bed appears to be floating above the floor, thanks to a creatively designed cantilever. The police facilitating the movement of the population in Little Rock following the explosion at Damascus. Sequential photographs showing the launching of the Titan II ICBM weapon firing from underground silos, circa 1965. If a rocket could be launched into space, it could also be launched at something, and far faster than bombers could fly to targets to drop their payloads. These sites stayed active until President George H.W. Don't go passed the gate without permission! The second fuel tank, sitting just above the first, contained a different fuel that could spontaneously ignite if a collapse occurred and it came into contact with the aerozine 50 already in the launch duct. Many of the dead were found crowded around an escape ladder. A bathroom with a bathtub and a double shower helps break up the circular feel of the LCC's top floor. The chances of all this happening were so remote, David Stumpf, the author of .css-3wjtm9{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.125rem;text-decoration-color:#1c6a65;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:inherit;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-3wjtm9:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}Titan II: A History of a Cold War Missile Program, tells Popular Mechanics. The Titan II missile program was terminated by the Reagan administration, but memories still burn brightly among many Arkansans. A concussion of wind hit me like a truck, and I slid 60 feet, and every foot, it felt like I was going faster. But the site King and Phillips were driving to in their company Dodge Omni was worse. It took a while to locate the nine-megaton nuclear warhead in the dark and gloom; it was still intact and not leaking. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The blast completely destroyed the silo and sent the 750-ton silo door . We backed out of the room quickly and asked for another room. (February 2011) Air-to-air missiles. Each of the mammoth doors can withstand 1,000 psi of pressure, Hill said. That night, the only clue we had that it was way past bedtime was our fatigue. Pieces of debris were taken away from the 400 acres (1.6km2) surrounding the facility, and the site was buried under a mound of gravel, soil, and small concrete debris. But somethinglater determined to be an elevator malfunctionwent wrong. They all knew each other. Founder, Native American Journalists Association. [13], Season 4, episode 4 (ep. A look inside Level 3 of the Titan Ranch in Vilonia, featuring the facility's emergency escape tunnel and ladder. The W53 thermonuclear warhead landed about 100 feet (30m) from the launch complex's entry gate. Had the Cold War ever turned hot, it was capable of being launched in one minute and could deliverits 9 megaton warhead to a target 9,000 miles away. 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. The United States quickly developed a second model of ICBMs called Titan. But we dealt with hydrazine [the fuel] and nitrogen tetroxide [the oxidizer] every day. 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. Aerozine 50 is hypergolic with the Titan II's oxidizer, dinitrogen tetroxide, such that they spontaneously ignite upon contact with each other. We didnt want to leave, but I understand why they wanted us to leave.. Sound good? 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: Fuel vapor started to fill the silo. The initial PTS team was sent home. 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 tried to recreate it in an empty silo, and it bounced into the wall. The first disaster occurred on August 9, 1965 at launch complex 373-4, located near Searcy. 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. In a Sept. 12, 2014 photo, Teri Kramer points out an escape hatch over from www.washingtontimes.com. The military continued to use Titan rockets as part of its intercontinental ballistic missile program through the 1980s, and this was not the only dramatic incident involving them. The team started running the procedure for readying the missile for liftoff. By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) were developed in response to the Soviet Union achieving nuclear capabilities. The AirBnB listing even drew the attention of a couple central Arkansas musicians, who filmed three music videos inside the facility. It took six years to retire the missiles, demolish the launch ducts and fill in the silos with debris. 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. The film was broadcast by PBS as part of its American Experience series. We stopped at Rockyford, Colorado about 6 p.m. and walked into the lobby of the only motel in town. 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. This released a cloud of noxious gas, leaving a few people sick and eager to file lawsuits. Lieutenant General Lloyd R. Leavitt Jr., the Vice Commander of the Strategic Air Command, commanded the effort to save the launch complex. Like us on Facebook to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. The first Titan II missile in Arkansas was installed in a silo near Searcy in 1963. Livingston reentered the silo to carry out the order and shortly thereafter, at about 3:00 a.m., the hypergolic fuel exploded likely due to arcing in the exhaust fan. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); We select one featured photo per week, but we show many more in our gallery.
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