It takes a certain mental toughness. A missile took 15 minutes to launch and had to be fueled with a highly flammable mix of kerosene and liquid oxygen. He started the radio station after his previous employer, Dogpatch, a Li'l Abner theme park, went belly-up. This design allows the structure to absorb the force from a nearby nuclear strike, with eight giant springs serving as shock absorbers. Eighteen were in Arkansas, from which intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying nine-megaton nuclear warheads could be launched to strike targets as far as 5,500 miles away. 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. View of the nose of a Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile sitting in its 150-foot deep underground launch pad at McConnell Air Force Base near Wichita, Kansas, circa 1965. Airbnb feels you, so now you can for $324 a night. Titan Ranch is now a converted nuclear missile facility on Airbnb 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. Maps to the LRAFB missile sites Be warned Arkansas Farmers aren't against shooting trespassers! The situation was critical. God, help me! 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. These shortcomings led to the rapid development of the Titan II missiles, which would become part of the three-pronged nuclear strategy the U.S. military used for the next 25 years. Gear-obsessed editors choose every product we review. While renovating, GT decided to put in a spiral staircase to save space and it adds to the industrial ambiance. There was a lot of white smoke, Ayala tells Popular Mechanics, but it was hydrazine.. The police facilitating the movement of the population in Little Rock following the explosion at Damascus. Kennedy, his leg broken, was blown 150 feet from the silo. This released a cloud of noxious gas, leaving a few people sick and eager to file lawsuits. All that was left to do was return the missile back to its silo and remove the dangerous oxidizer. Basically, you crawl 10 feet and then it's a 50-foot ladder," Hill said. 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." "We never wanted to build rooms," Hill said, referring to the circular layout and feel to the LCC. Construction on the Minuteman II structures began in 1946. The discovery of what appear to be hundreds of new missile silos under construction in China has inspired arguments that imply the United States needs more nuclear weapons. It never bounced into the missile.. 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 lake was blue and beautiful and we parked about 25 yards away and opened the hatch of our SUV intent on a nice, tailgate lunch. In April 2018, Atlas Obscura told the stories of five nuclear accidents that burst into public view. As Jackie waved her hands around my head trying to chase the flies out of the window, cars passing us must have thought she was a woman gone mad who was assaulting the driver. More than 600 miles to the south, the F.E. But this never happened. I retreated upstairs to enjoy the incredible shower in the master suite and stayed up entirely too late reading a book in bed. He said, "The same as it was when you came in." 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. The first thing that makes this particular route interesting is the still active missile silos that dot the highway from Kimball to the Colorado border. Police discussing evacuation plans after the explosion. Theyd heard on the scanner there was something going on at Missile Complex 374-7, the Titan II Missile installation in nearby Damascus. Because their vapor detectors indicated an explosive atmosphere, the two were ordered to evacuate. What Happens When a Giant Nuclear Missile Accidentally Falls Back Into On September 19, 1980, a second tragedy struck the 308th Strategic Missile Wing. Its a bit of a chilling experience. It had happened before. Fueled and ready to go 24 hours a day, Titan IIs could be ready to go at a moment's notice. 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. "That's one of the very few things about the Titan IIs that remain classified," he said. We were joined by GT himself, who gave us an incredible tour, along with stories about the restoration effort and a few SNAFU moments during the massive project. From Level 2, visitors may climb a spiral staircase to Level 1which previously served as the crew's sleeping quarters and kitchen or descend to Level 3, which housed the communication equipment that kept the facility connected to the larger world. The U.S. Doesn't Need More Nuclear Weapons to Counter China's New "So you work on things when you can. Copyright 2023, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. Dig for Fossils in Northeast Texas. Three of the Arkansas launch sites--in White, Van Buren, and Faulkner counties--have been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Lieutenant General Lloyd R. Leavitt Jr., the Vice Commander of the Strategic Air Command, commanded the effort to save the launch complex. Oh yes, Jackie's checkup, despite her MS, showed her to be in excellent health. A compilation of platforms and weapons, the three legs of the U.S. nuclear triad serve as the backbone of America's national security. Titan II Missile Explosion in Arkansas - 40 Year Anniversary 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. file size: 5 MB. A bathroom with a bathtub and a double shower helps break up the circular feel of the LCC's top floor. For a one-night stay, I would recommend bringing all of your own food. The blast completely destroyed the silo and sent the 750-ton silo door . 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. And the origin of those dates back to the height of the Cold War in the 1950s and '60s, specifically the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957. [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. Its worth it, I promise. Visitors actually drive over the top of the former missile silo on their way to the LCC. Mapping the Missile Fields (U.S. National Park Service) The large underground facility at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, New Its a lot of heavy information in a short time, but worth absorbing every minute of it. The likely missile field, comprising 120 silos that could potentially house weapons capable of reaching the United States mainland, was documented by researchers at the James Martin Center for . 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. China Is Building A Second Nuclear Missile Silo Field 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. A high-end master bedroom, spacious living room and stainless steel kitchen gives a visitor the feeling of visiting a supervillain's lair more than a military facility engineered for Armageddon. 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. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Human error in a nuclear facility nearly destroyed Arkansas Nuclear Missile Silos Hidden Across Arizona Desert - OnlyInYourState By 1986 these sites were all decommissioned and destroyed. The first missile silo was listed in november 2019 for $395,000, and sold for $420,000. A concussion of wind hit me like a truck, and I slid 60 feet, and every foot, it felt like I was going faster. In 1978, six months after the trailer leak in Arkansas, two airmen died after a leak in Kansas. I heard somebody yelling "Help me! King remembers sitting on the hood of a sheriffs car, aimlessly slipping his shoes on and off. The Air Force also chose two other states to site Titan II missiles: Arizona and Kansas. He was the first Native American ever inducted into the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2007. Titan Ranch is located in Vilonia, Arkansas, just northeast of Conway. We didnt want to leave, but I understand why they wanted us to leave.. Using decades-old U.S. Air Force training footage, re-enactments and drone . 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. 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. They were ordered to leave the launch duct when the measurements proved alarmingly high. Miraculously, only one person died: Livingston, in a local hospital the day after the explosion of pulmonary edema, sometimes called dry drowning. [6] There was concern for the possible collapse of the now empty first-stage fuel tank, which could cause the rest of the 8-story missile to fall and rupture, allowing the oxidizer to contact the fuel already in the silo. Warren Air Force Base In Wyoming. 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. "You didn't know if it was going to Cuba or if it was going to Moscow," Hill said. Active Missile Silos In The Us Many were built in Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota. "It's a little weird," Hill said. A 1961 decommissioned Atlas-F intercontinental ballistic missile silo complex is for sale. One of the strangest things about the master suite is the domed concrete ceiling. We hurriedly put our food away, closed the hatchback and put some distance between ourselves and the pasture. 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. About a half-mile down the road, Sgts. An airman dropped a wrench socket and it fell 80 feet and pierced the thin skin of the rockets first stage fuel tank. Don't go passed the gate without permission! All rights reserved. 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). "This whole facility was designed to shake to survive in case of war," Hill said. On Sept. 19, 1980, a silo near Damascus, Arkansas, exploded, killing one airman. The elevator structure and the launchertons and tons of steel that one witness later likened to red spaghetticame flying from the silo as the test team ran for cover. Each of the mammoth doors can withstand 1,000 psi of pressure, Hill said. I never knew we were so close to a pasture filled with grazing cattle, and where there is an abundance of cattle there is an abundance of cow pies and where there are cow pies there is an abundance of flies. If you would like to republish please give the photographer appropriate credit. Titan Ranch began hosting conferences and meetings in 2019, and added its AirBnB listing in November 2020. "When power failed in the launch duct," Mark Christ has noted, "the air-conditioning turned off, raising temperatures in the silo and creating conditions that could lead to an explosion of the oxidizer within the missile, which had a boiling point of 70 degrees." You don't know who you were killing. The air turned white and chunks of steel-reinforced concrete fell out of the sky after the fuel ignited. The first ICBMs, called Atlas, were ready by 1959 and deployed at air force bases around the nation. 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]. Civilian construction workers were working in all nine levels of the launch duct, painting and flushing the hydraulic systems that operated the steel platforms beside the missile. 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. When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into space in 1957, it made the idea of long-range nuclear bombers obsolete. Sid King had just sat down to dinner on September 18, 1980 when he got the call. The Damascus missile complex was at the Southside location, indicated by the red star on the map above. The first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) silos arrived on the Great Plains in 1959 when Atlas sites were constructed in Wyoming. We stopped at Rockyford, Colorado about 6 p.m. and walked into the lobby of the only motel in town. 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. 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 missile was not armed at the time. Winner will be selected at random on 04/01/2023. Walking across the gangplank feels something like a sci-fi movie, and my childrens insistence on bringing Star Wars costumes was rather apropos. Lucky for us, Nick was very knowledgeable and answered all of our questions. 634: Human Error in Volatile Situations - This American Life The silo which housed the Gemini missile is sealed off and still remains destroyed. As was the case with the Pangburn disaster, the explosion at the Damascus launch site resulted from routine maintenance work. How far is it from Rockyford to Limon? These are MAJOR nuclear war targets, each one of these silo's will be hit with minimum one warhead with a fairly large yield as part of a Russian counterforce attack. Placed on the western edges of the Soviet Union due to their limited range of 2,000 kilometers, the Sandals could . [11], The launch complex was never repaired. Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is the editor and publisher of Native Sun News. But it doesn't come cheap at $600 a night but only if you can . Our stay at Titan Ranch began with driving down the gravel road, leading between cow pastures, the reason for the name ranch. Cows looked back at us, munching away, while we wondered if we were headed to the right place. The second airmen survived his injuries, while 21 others suffered injuries from the blast and following rescue operation and cleanup. List of active missiles of the United States military - Wikipedia But not before my kids donned their Star Wars Mandalorian costumes for a little photo shoot. 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. Then it faded into relative obscurity. It is eerie to see military vehicles and military personnel going to and from these scary silos in the middle of wheat country. This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. Titan I missiles were stored in silo lifts and had to be raised to the surface to be fueled before launch. but I couldn't see him." Happy #EmployeeAppreciationDay! Twenty years ago Kansas, Arkansas and Arizona were littered with nuclear missiles, ready to be deployed at a moment's notice. One moment, the team at the new operational test facility had been on the verge of celebrating, finally, a successful trial run of the launch sequence for the powerful Titan I missile. U.S. Maps to the LRAFB missile sites - 308SMW 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. "So this is purposefully, 'Hey, you're not in a missile silo.' 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. Designed by The Twiggs Group. The Damascus incident was front page news for at least a few days. "From a weapon of mass destruction to hosting birthday parties and weddings, that's pretty wild ride," Hill said. We need your stories about the city's hidden corners and unusual places. Thats the idea of the Titan II. Why the Air Force Wants a Stealthy Tanker by 2040, Why Runaway Mines Are Detonating in the Black Sea, How This Humble Drone Shrugs Off Russian Jamming. Ten years ago, Hill purchased the site that Titan Ranch sits on. The entire motel was quite ramshackled and we entered number 20 with trepidation. After a decommissioned Titan II missile silo in Arizona was sold in just two weeks late last year, two more desert silos . Level 3 now serves as the living room and kitchen area. In a Sept. 12, 2014 photo, Teri Kramer points out an escape hatch over from www.washingtontimes.com. by Tom Dillard | May 19, 2019 at 1:45 a.m. Two of the most serious disasters to plague the Titan II missile program during the Cold War occurred in Arkansas. The Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs is famous across the state and [] Titan II was a nuclear-tipped missile, also known as an intercontinental ballistic missile, designed to [], [] the early 1960s, the Air Force built 18 Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Silos in Arkansas. The film was broadcast by PBS as part of its American Experience series. 1980 Damascus Titan missile explosion - Wikipedia Incredible Active Missile Silos In Arkansas Ideas. At about 1 p.m. the launch duct was suddenly filled with intense heat and billowing smoke." They all knew each other. The first Titan II missile in Arkansas was installed in a silo near Searcy in 1963. Theres a unique history surrounding Little Rock, Arkansas that you may not know about. tercontinental ballistic missile wing, has the largest number of active fense Council (NRDC) and Hans M. Krisair force weapons. Two years earlier, a trailer at Damascus leaked oxidizer, the component that mixes with rocket fuel to propel a rocket into space or toward a strategic target. Created with Sketch. Visitors to Titan Ranch stay inside the former ICBM facility's launch control center (LCC), located 50 feet underground. They realized it was way worse, not worse than we felt it would be, but probably worse than a lot of other people thought, Devlin says. The next morning, my kids enjoyed the donuts Id brought for them and another movie on the projector. Inside the super-hardened silo, meant to be protected from nuclear attacks, the team loaded the rocket with oxidizer, a key ingredient for blast-off, and sent it up to the surface. So the Titans stayed in placeand demonstrated time and again their peril. To this day, those Titan II targets remain classified, he said. 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. Despite the size of the explosion, no one was hurt in the accident: The second-set of recently reinforced blast doors held.
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