Posted on 11/03/2017 7:59:47 AM PDT by Rebelbase
real men....men who knew how to do things...men who self sacrificed....men who were the salt of the earth...I love those men...
Don’t know if you saw this post but if not, I think you’ll find it interesting.
No but I became extremely familiar with the accident report. I was a weather officer but I became the AF expert on this report. I was on the stand for a day and a half. After all this “expert” testimony and factual graphs, the Carter judge actually thought there had been a nuclear explosion. We just all shook our collective heads.
There was some heroism there as well as some funny stuff when the titan blew the 800 ton top off the silo and the warhead out. Apparently there wasn’t enough room on those curvy backroads for the local cops and lookers to get away. On the hero side there was an enlisted guy that went crawling around in the silo to get some readings on how fast the hydrazine was leaking which gave a pretty good idea when it would implode. Under the no good deed goes unpunished he was disciplined for disobeying an order not to go in.
This accident was kept pretty close hold and I never heard of it in the 14 years I was directly involved with ICBMs, but I read the entire report once I started working in DC and was responsible for a large portion of the stockpile.
Back in those early years parts of the system design were quite rudimentary as they were designed and built on the fly. Heck. The first Titan II squadron was on Alert less than a year after the program was authorized and funded.
Anyway, what happened at that Minuteman Launch Facility would not have if the Airman involved had not used an unauthorized tool, a screwdriver, to pull a fuse. Unlike the testimony of reinserting the fuse a few times when the arc happened he actually used a screwdriver to try to pry out the fuse because he could not find the authorized fuse puller. He arced the hot terminal in the fuse holder to ground and sent a signal throughout the entire Launcher system.
The accident in Arkansas was at a Titan II ICBM complex and was caused when a maintenance Airman dropped a huge socket down the side of the missile where it punched a hole in the Stage 1 fuel tank. When the concentration of fuel in the atmosphere hit the explosive level it ignited and the entire missile exploded, blowing the 760 ton Silo Closure Door off the silo and flinging the warhead several hundred yards into a ditch.
That picture is a Minuteman III, 21M-LGM30G. The accident mentioned here was from one of the very early Minuteman I, 21M-LGM30A/B missiles.
Sheesh! This is an amazing story. I had not heard of it.
BFL
Thus may be of some interest to you.
bump
That is huge. The bombs that took out Hiroshima and Nagasaki were measured in Kilotons. Is that 9 thousand times bigger?!!
Lived through the era laughing at liberals who genuinely believed the Russians were absolutely going to nuke us at any time if we so much as farted wrong.
I mocked them mercilessly.
In the early 1970s, I periodically drove by those missile silos when traveling the state as part of my job with the South Dakota Department of Health. That section of South Dakota is very remote with few towns or even ranches. When making those trips in winter driving notoriously unreliable cars from the state motor pool, I took comfort seeing those silos knowing that if I became stranded with a breakdown I could go over and kick the well monitored fences and someone would certainly come to investigate. Better to be arrested than freeze to death in the brutal Dakota winters.
Good ta hear from ya bub !! Hope yer well !!!
“The accident in Arkansas was at a Titan II ICBM complex and was caused when a maintenance Airman dropped a huge socket down the side of the missile where it punched a hole in the Stage 1 fuel tank. When the concentration of fuel in the atmosphere hit the explosive level it ignited and the entire missile exploded, blowing the 760 ton Silo Closure Door off the silo and flinging the warhead several hundred yards into a ditch.”
My experience was in the bomber leg of the triad (B-52 and B-1 aircrew) so I’ll defer to OldMissileer on the details, but my impression was that the fuel and oxidizer for the Titan II (Aerozine 50 and nitrogen tetroxide respectively) ignited on contact with each other. Both were pretty hazardous to unprotected humans also: neoprene suits were a standard safety accessory at all launch facilities.
By way of contrast, Minuteman (and later, Peacekeeper) were propelled by solid-fuel rockets. Fuel was a putty-like or somewhat rubbery substance that did not leak and was relatively insensitive to impact or shock. And the motor casing contained the heat & pressure while the fuel was actually burning, making airframes for both later systems a great deal stronger and more puncture-resistant than any liquid-fueled missile, which was essentially a giant fuel tank with rocket motors at the bottom and payload on top.
The Air Force chalked up a very long history of experimentation with some rather exotic materials for fuels. Development of the B-70 bomber spawned an offshoot program to use boronated fuel in air-breathing jets: the carbon atoms in the molecular chain were replaced by boron. The advantage was said to be an increase in range of some percentage, for the same mass of fuel, but the stuff was so toxic that special training and protective gear were required for fuel management personnel and maintainers. Wear characteristics to aircraft fuel systems and engines were not great either. Those negative aspects plus the high cost of boronating the fuel rendered the entire business infeasible, so the program died.
You are correct the fuel and oxidizer are hypergolic but in the Arkansas accident only the Stage 1 fuel tank was penetrated. When the fuel vapor hit the explosive level (I think it was 64,000ppm) it ignited and then the rest of the missile tanks, both fuel and oxidizer were destroyed and that was when the big bang happened as they mixed.
The special protective suits used by the Propellant Transfer System (PTS) teams were not in the launch complexes on a day-to-day basis. The Rocket Fuel Handler's Clothing Outfit (RFHCO) Suit was the same type used by NASA for their space ops. We Missile Combat Crew Members were not trained to use them nor had them until after our accident at McConnell AFB, KS in 1978 when we had an entire Stage 1 oxidizer tank leak out, kill two PTS troops, and destroy the entire complex. After that accident certain crews were trained in the use of the suits and became dedicated crews used during PTS operations with each crew dog having a suit for emergencies.
Yes, the Minuteman and PK missiles used/use solid fuel and part of the mix was Butyl Rubber.
Every time I see that cartoon I chuckle.....
A big hammer seems to always be the last resort........
Thanks. I’m doing well. I hope all is well with you. Feel free to reach me through the usual channels, my friend.
Bfl
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