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This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Level 3 also contains the facility's emergency escape tunnel and ladder. I heard somebody yelling "Help me! 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]. "TheThree Side" 373-1: 373-3: 373-2 . More than half of the potential arsenal is in Amarillo, Texas, at the Pantex plant, which will dismantle them. The complexes were grouped together in missile fields. Heres what the terrifying incident was like, from those who were there. The facility's master bedroom, on Level 1, features a king-sizedbed and remote controlled fireplace. Perhaps most famously, as the investigative journalist Eric Schlosser recounts in his book Command and Control, in 1980, a Titan II missile exploded in its silo in Damascus, Arkansas, while carrying a nuclear warhead. He can be reached at editor@nsweekly.com. 2010 Native Sun News. The initial explosion catapulted the 740-ton silo door away from the silo and ejected the second stage and warhead. Originally, the launch control center had standard steps to reach multiple levels. The Titan II, on the other hand, had a longer range and could be used for defense as well as for the nations nascent space program. A civilian crew was working throughout all nine floors of the missile silo, which plunged 150 into the ground. We stopped at Rockyford, Colorado about 6 p.m. and walked into the lobby of the only motel in town. The Ghosts of Soviet Past: Crawling Through the Decayed Nuclear Missile 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. When the socket fell, it plunged 70 feet to pierce the side of the . We depend on ad revenue to craft and curate stories about the worlds hidden wonders. Happy #EmployeeAppreciationDay! Titan Ranch missile control center comes with a full kitchen, stocked with drinks refrigerator, and a massive projector equipped with multiple movie streaming options along with some saved movies. I was living out of state at the time, but the disaster was covered in depth by the national press. I said, We just left a bunch of dead people back there. He said Yeah, I know. We were sick about it. 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. Theres a real risk right now. Ten years ago, Hill purchased the site that Titan Ranch sits on. 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. Airmen Jeffrey Plumb and David Powell were in the silo working on the missile. The missile sites in Arkansas fanned out from the base into Cleburne, Conway, Faulkner, Van Buren and White counties. Deactivation of Arkansas' Titan II missile silos began in May 1985 and ended May 5, 1987, with the state's last missile, located near Judsonia, Arkansas, being deactivated. Hed worked on the Manhattan Project and had retired to Damascus after years in Los Alamos, New Mexico. However, the missile sites represented only 3 percent of the cooperative's annual sales of $26 million, according to a . She has hiked the Inca Trail, walked into Panama on a rickety wooden bridge and once missed the last train of the night in Paris and walked several miles home (with friends). Visitors actually drive over the top of the former missile silo on their way to the LCC. The united states built many missile silos in the midwest, away from populated areas. The Titan missile silo disasters - Arkansas' Best News Source Along with bombers and sea-launched ballistic missiles, the Titan II missile program was a bulwark in the nation's three pronged-response to threats posed by the Soviet Union's large nuclear warfare capacity. By comparison, a house my be blown down by 5 psi of pressure, he said. What Happens When a Giant Nuclear Missile Accidentally Falls Back Into Fueled and ready to go 24 hours a day, Titan IIs could be ready to go at a moment's notice. While the Polaris, a solid-fuel missile, was developed at the same time as the Titan missiles for use in submarines, the military was attached to the Titan II for diplomatic reasons. It was used for the Gemini project, which launched men like Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Jim Lovell into space in the 1960s. Vince Guerrieri is a writer based in the Cleveland area. 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. This isnt ancient history, Schlosser, who wrote Command and Control, the seminal book about the Damascus incident and the history of nuclear weapons in America, tells Popular Mechanics. The fuels so volatile, it could explode on its own, Greg Devlin, who was a 21-year old Airman in the U.S. Air Force at Damascus on the night of the explosion, tells Popular Mechanics. 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. Many of these locations hold warheads awaiting dismantlement. The Damascus Titan missile explosion (also called the Damascus accident) was a 1980 U.S. nuclear weapons incident involving a Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). A welder accidentally hit a hydraulic fluid line with his welding rod, which sparked a fire that quickly filled the missile shaft and sucked the oxygen out. After nearly being run over by the sheriff, King and Phillips jumped in their car and took off. [11], The launch complex was never repaired. Arkansas was home to 18 Titan II ICBMs in a missile field located north of Conway. The police facilitating the movement of the population in Little Rock following the explosion at Damascus. On Sept. 19, 1980, a silo near Damascus, Arkansas, exploded, killing one airman. From 1963 to 1987, crews maintained the missiles on 24-hour alert and . 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. We didnt want to leave, but I understand why they wanted us to leave.. The Titan II missile program was terminated by the Reagan administration, but memories still burn brightly among many Arkansans. 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.". Out of 55 workers, only two survived. In April 2018, Atlas Obscura told the stories of five nuclear accidents that burst into public view. The AirBnB listing even drew the attention of a couple central Arkansas musicians, who filmed three music videos inside the facility. Once clear of the silo, the second stage exploded. They stood 103 feet tall and had a range of 9,300 miles. The Titan II Missile program was a Cold War weapons system featuring fifty-four launch complexes in three states. [13], Season 4, episode 4 (ep. He's the author of two books, and his byline has appeared in Deadspin, Jalopnik, CityLab and POLITICO, among other places. Titan Ranch, located just northeast of Conway, Arkansas, is one of these nuclear missile bases. 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. Say what? "From a weapon of mass destruction to hosting birthday parties and weddings, that's pretty wild ride," Hill said. 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 Damascus incident was front page news for at least a few days. They told of groping around in total darkness, hearing the screams of co-workers: "Men were screaming and crying. [2][12] The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 18, 2000. The most common sites have been the . Little Rock, Conway, Searcy, Benton, Heber Springs, Fayetteville, Bentonville, Springdale, Fort Smith, Jonesboro, West Memphis, Batesville, Mountain View, Hot Springs, Pine Bluff, Texarkana, Arkadelphia. They would meet at the Air Force base in the morning and drive to the missile launch control silo to begin their work day. Perhaps most famously, as the investigative journalist Eric Schlosser recounts in his book Command and Control . The Air Force decided to take measures to improve security within the launch complexes. Is Russias Only Aircraft Carrier Cursed? I turned to Sergeant Green and said, Man, aint that pretty, before I realized what it was, Roberts said in a statement during the investigation. An eye-opening journey through the history, culture, and places of the culinary world. Since it was very hot outside I asked this cadaver of a man, "What's the temperature." "There was metal debris, concrete, all sorts of stuff we had to pull out," he said. The missile was installed later that month at the Albion site, northwest of Searcy, Ark., but not active until May. "Some people feel that the missile had a little bit of a bad omen, if you will.". He started the radio station after his previous employer, Dogpatch, a Li'l Abner theme park, went belly-up. A socket from a large socket wrench rolled off a platform and punctured the missile's lower-stage fuel tank, starting a fuel leak that eventually led to the explosion a few hours later. Construction on the Minuteman II structures began in 1946. The team had met its goal. The missile not only survived the explosion in 1965, it was the same missile which exploded in 1980 near Damascus. We need your stories about the city's hidden corners and unusual places. But it doesn't come cheap at $600 a night but only if you can . Workers from . They were used to launch satellites into space as recently as 2003. Part of HuffPost Wellness. It is a long and lonely route. Missiles were programmed with three potential targets. Titan Ranch is located in Vilonia, Arkansas, just northeast of Conway. If you need to flag this entry as abusive. The four men at the silo were blown off their feet. The nearly 4,000 square-foot LCC now sleeps six comfortably and can hold as many as 70 visitors for a meeting or conference. When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into space in 1957, it made the idea of long-range nuclear bombers obsolete. I . If you would like to republish please give the photographer appropriate credit. All rights reserved. Titan II rockets were adapted to use in the space program and launched the first Gemini manned missions in the early 1960s. Over its 25 years in the service, the Titan II series had it share of accidents, two of the most well-known occurring in Arkansas. There were tons of movie options for children and my kids had a blast watching Paddington on the huge white walls of the silo. 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The entire motel was quite ramshackled and we entered number 20 with trepidation. But we dealt with hydrazine [the fuel] and nitrogen tetroxide [the oxidizer] every day. Sequential photographs showing the launching of the Titan II ICBM weapon firing from underground silos, circa 1965. Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living near Glen Rose in rural Hot Spring County. The 390th Strategic Missile Wing, headquartered at Davis-Monthan AFB, Tucson, was active from 1962-84 and had command of the 18 sites in Southern Arizona. This was the first missile site to become operational in Arkansas in 1963. 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. China is building a sprawling network of missile silos, satellite - CNN In 1965, dozens of people died after a fire started in a Titan II silo in Arkansas. The United States quickly developed a second model of ICBMs called Titan. Investigations including a congressional inquiry delved into the Damascus tragedy. 1980 Damascus Titan missile explosion - Wikipedia 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. They were ordered to leave the launch duct when the measurements proved alarmingly high. USS Cyclops Is the Navys Last Missing Big Ship, Russias New Warhead Is an Engine of Destruction, How Drones and Sats Have Given Ukraine a Chance. 2023 Farmers Bank & Trust. Don't go passed the gate without permission! LITTLE ROCK, Ark. Accepted file types: jpg, png, Max. 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. Owen Sims, a cattle farmer, says he is breathing easier now that the last Titan 2 nuclear missile silo, situated over a ridge less than 2,000 feet from his home, has been dismantled. We drove past these remnants of the cold war toward Brush, Colorado where we intended to stop at a small lake near Brush just off of the highway and have our picnic. The state is armed with 150 nuclear missile silos that form a . 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. Required fields are marked *. The unique Cold War-era relic is part of an 11-acre Kansas lot on the market for $380,000. Designed by The Twiggs Group. Fortunately, its safety mechanisms prevented any loss of nuclear material. The silos cover, made of hundreds of tons of concrete, was half destroyed. The U.S. Doesn't Need More Nuclear Weapons to Counter China's New All rights reserved. They dont know where the warhead is, King recalls being told. "And we don't have any vacancies because there's a tournament in town," he spat. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Livingston lay amid the rubble of the launch duct for some time before security personnel located and evacuated him. And Mondale then refused to confirm or deny when he was asked about it at the state convention. What you may not know is that at one time, there were 18 ICBM (intercontinental nuclear missile) silos surrounding the Little Rock area. He gave us a key to Room 20. While the warhead inside the rocket remained in one piece, preventing a nuclear disaster, the crew working on the site did not escape without harm: One man died and more than 20 others were injured. A 1961 decommissioned Atlas-F intercontinental ballistic missile silo complex is for sale. His weekly column won the H. L. Mencken Award in 1985.

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