Disasters: Toll of a Titan

Toll of a Titar

U.S. Missile Site 373-4, nestled among blackjack oaks in the Ozark foothills ten miles northwest of Searcy, Ark., had been out of operation for nearly six weeks. While the 174-ft.-deep silo, one of 54 Titan II sites in the U.S., underwent repairs to its air conditioning, plumbing and exhaust systems, its nuclear warhead was in storage at Little Rock Air Force Base, 55 miles away. The missile itself, a five-story, 18,000-m.p.h. Titan II of the type that is scheduled to launch this week’s eight-day Gemini mission, remained in place as 55 civilian workmen swarmed up and down the silo’s nine levels. “Something Wrong?” Some workers were still returning from lunch one day last week when there was a blast and a flash of flame. “The lights went out,” recalls Gary Lay, 18, who was cleaning up debris on the second level. “Everybody was hollering, ‘Let’s get out of here!’ I tried to go down a ladder, but it was jammed up with men. So I went through the fire.” Hubert Saunders, 59, was painting a door on the topmost level inside the “gun barrel,” a concrete and steel-plated tube that sheathes the missile. “I looked down and saw smoke coming up,” says Saunders. “I heard a man crying, ‘Help me, God help me!’ But I couldn’t see him. I was in the tube. The missile was in there. I got out of there.” Lay and Saunders escaped through the tunnel leading to the single access portal. They were followed by Alan Aincham, 19, who had been posted in the passageway to check that workers in the silo carried no matches or articles that could strike a spark. Said Aincham: “It felt like there was a hurricane outside, and you had opened the door and let the wind hit you in the face.” No smoke or noise carried to the surface. When Aincham raced out, a worker topside asked: “Is something wrong?” The only outside warning of the disaster came from instruments in an underground command post 220 ft. away, where four Air Force crewmen immediately donned masked survival suits and ran out to investigate.

Sealed Lid. There was nothing to be done. For hours after the blast, smoke made it impossible for rescue teams to search the silo. The explosion had cut off the power, making it impossible to open the 700-ton steel and concrete lid that seals the silo airtight. As flames devoured what little oxygen there was, several men tried to crawl into air-conditioning ducts. The elevator was stalled for lack of power, and the only way up was a single ladder. Trapped workmen piled onto it in panic, and two wedged themselves hopelessly together in one narrow section of the ladderway, blocking those behind them. All 53 remaining in the silo died.

Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. of Hartford, insurance carrier for the Omaha contracting firm of Peter Kiewit Sons’ Co., estimated that it would pay more than $1,000,000 in benefits to survivors. Pending its month-long investigation, the Air Force suspended similar work on other Titan II sites. What caused the disaster, worst in U.S. missile history, was officially a mystery. The likeliest theory is that a diesel generator had somehow switched on in the third level, throwing a spark into the volatile atmosphere where pipe fitters were working on the hydraulic system. Thus the Titan II, deadliest and most dependable missile in the U.S. arsenal, accidentally claimed its first victims.