Stuck in a hole with a leaky nuclear missile

National Post ^ | MARCH 24, 2014 | Eric Schlosser

[rickmichaels]

On Sept. 18, 1980, at about 6:30 in the evening, Senior Airman David F. Powell and Airman Jeffrey L. Plumb walked into the silo at Launch Complex 374-7, a few miles north of Damascus, Arkansas. They were planning to do a routine maintenance procedure on a Titan II missile. They’d spent countless hours underground at complexes like this one. But no matter how many times they entered the silo, the Titan II always looked impressive. It was the largest intercontinental ballistic missile ever built by the United States: Ten feet in diameter and 103 feet tall, roughly the height of a nine-story building. It had an aluminum skin with a matte finish and U.S. AIR FORCE painted in big letters down the side. The nose cone on top of the Titan II was deep black, and inside it sat a W-53 thermonuclear warhead, the most powerful weapon ever carried by an American missile. The warhead had a yield of 9 megatons — about three times the explosive force of all the bombs dropped during the Second World War, including both atomic bombs.

Day or night, winter or spring, the silo always felt the same. It was eerily quiet, and mercury vapour lights on the walls bathed the missile in a bright white glow. When you opened the door on a lower level and stepped into the launch duct, the Titan II loomed above you like an immense black-tipped silver bullet, loaded in a concrete gun barrel, primed, cocked, ready to go, and pointed at the sky.

[snoopy 'n linus]

second day warhead found just to right of access road in the drainage cut. Yes it did explode in silo and AF relied upon CBS station video to recreate what happened because of lousy communication headset when ventilation switched moved

[JimRed]

When I was young there was a Nike Zeus AA site in the Highlands, to our north.

[Terry L Smith]

JimRed wrote:
“When I was young there was a Nike Zeus AA site in the Highlands, to our north.”

In the 1960’s, I lived on Otis AFB, MA. My father was a member of the refueling team, that frequented the Bomarc missile site on the base. The Bomarc missile was a solid-fuel booster-equipped ramjet-propelled delta-winged aerial vehicle, not unlike an unmanned plane, nuclear warheaded design, meant to air-burst, in the middle of a flight of attacking bombers, some 200 miles off the coastline of the Cape. You can see that there are all sorts of nasties, just waiting to pop up. Solid rocket fuel, hydrazine for the ramjets, nuclear warheads, rubber protective suits, and the like.

[Terry L Smith]

Dear TADSLOS,

That is now Francis S. Gabreski airport. I lived on LI for a while, near “ron-kon-coma”, as the Manhattanites called it. I am familiar with both the former Grumman fields in Bethpage and Calverton.

I was on Otis AFB during The Cuban Missile Crisis. That was an interesting moment in time.

[TADSLOS]

Ref the Cuban Missile Crisis - Yes, it was, although I barely remember much of it. We lived in family quarters on base. I was only 7 years old at the time. I just remember my dad being away for a few weeks and my mom being very pensive. My dad explained it all from his viewpoint years later when we kids were old enough to understand the seriousness of the situation. Must have been mental and emotional hell on both of them.

Ref Gabreski Airport - I just watched a show on AHC last night about Gabby Gabreski. What a great story of a great ace! The man was fearless.