active missile silos in arkansas

[1] It focused on the explosion, as well as other Broken Arrow incidents during the Cold War. Titan I missiles were stored in silo lifts and had to be raised to the surface to be fueled before launch. The state is armed with 150 nuclear missile silos that form a . A concussion of wind hit me like a truck, and I slid 60 feet, and every foot, it felt like I was going faster. The first launch complex completed was situated near Pangburn northwest of Searcy, going operational on July 31, 1962. The 308th SMW was the last active titan wing, but after 23 years of continuous service, the ICBM mission at Little Rock AFB was over. Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living near Glen Rose in rural Hot Spring County. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Hill said he had no plans to excavate the silo in the immediate future. He was a 19-year-old missile technician, a new trainee, riding with another guy, David Powell, who was showing Plumb the ropes. The blast completely destroyed the silo and sent the 750-ton silo door . Due to the safety features built into the warhead, it did not detonate and was recovered about 300 feet away from the explosion. "So this is purposefully, 'Hey, you're not in a missile silo.' The story behind Colorado's Minuteman missiles and the people at the controls. The large master bed appears to be floating above the floor, thanks to a creatively designed cantilever. Jackie and I set out from Rapid City to Albuquerque for two reasons. All rights reserved. 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. It appears that you're using a severely outdated version of Safari on Windows. By the evening of December 3, 1960, eight tests had already failed because of minor equipment malfunctions, Stumpf writes. 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. By comparison, a house my be blown down by 5 psi of pressure, he said. Bottom: Damascus after the explosion. Itll be in a port in a shipping container or something like that.. After getting the last fly out of the car, we hoped, everything went as planned. All three floors of the LCC do not actually connect to the walls and are instead suspended from the ceiling, reminiscent of a giant birdcage. The Titan II missile was the tallest ICBM used by the U.S. military. The triad, along with assigned . The control room space sits on level two of an internal, solid steel birdcage structure. In his official statement in the investigation, Kennedy said it didnt make sense: Why would you energize an electrical circuit in a fuel leak? Livingston flipped the switch and then came topside. Cleaning Up America's Worst Nuclear Waste Dump, Why Russian Hybrid Warfare Failed in Ukraine, Titan II: A History of a Cold War Missile Program, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. This document may not be reprinted without the express written permission of Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. Material from the Associated Press is Copyright 2023, Associated Press and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. [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. King was part owner of KGFL-AM in Clinton, Arkansas. Say what? Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium. My son was absolutely thrilled to learn how to use the tablet to control the lights in the room. However, the missile sites represented only 3 percent of the cooperative's annual sales of $26 million, according to a . 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. You have to try it to see what I mean. 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. The missile silo near Pervomaysk is the only intact remainder of what was once an array of nuclear bases in Ukraine. Ten years ago, Hill purchased the site that Titan Ranch sits on. He's the author of two books, and his byline has appeared in Deadspin, Jalopnik, CityLab and POLITICO, among other places. [2], Kennedy, initially praised as a hero, later received an official letter of reprimand for his first entry into the complex, as it later transpired that he had disregarded an order to stay away. Originally, the launch control center had standard steps to reach multiple levels. 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"Then there was the water.". Created with Sketch. Heres what the terrifying incident was like, from those who were there. (By comparison, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was around 15 kilotons, and the one dropped on Nagasaki was around 21 kilotons. 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. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. You think things will take a year, but they really take five years.". These sites stayed active until President George H.W. 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. Maps to the LRAFB missile sites Be warned Arkansas Farmers aren't against shooting trespassers! (Kennedy died in 2011 at the age of 56.) LITTLE ROCK, Ark. What you may not know is that at one time, there were 18 ICBM (intercontinental nuclear missile) silos surrounding the Little Rock area. 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. They stood 103 feet tall and had a range of 9,300 miles. 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. During the 25-year period of operations, Arkansas experienced two disasters connected to the missiles. [5], A 1988 television film, Disaster at Silo 7, is based on this event. The first Titan II missile in Arkansas was installed in a silo near Searcy in 1963. The steel structure needed to be able to move within the concrete silo and dome, in order to remain operational regardless of what was occurring outside. I tucked my children into the beds on the second floor, while my son picked a color for the light to stay while they fell asleep. 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. It had happened before. The process was eye-opening, and a great history lesson. She believes magic can be found in life and books, loves to watch the stars appear, and still dreams of backpacking the world. Top: Vanderberg Air Force Base, for reference. Visitors to Titan Ranch stay inside the former ICBM facility's launch control center (LCC), located 50 feet underground. For us, there were two, queen size beds set up for my children. Here are some maps showing the locations of U.S. Minuteman III ICBM silo's along with coordinates. The Titan missile silo disasters. But it doesn't come cheap at $600 a night but only if you can . They would meet at the Air Force base in the morning and drive to the missile launch control silo to begin their work day. It was used for the Gemini project, which launched men like Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Jim Lovell into space in the 1960s. The incident began with a fuel leak at 6:30 p.m. on September 18, and culminated with the explosion at around 3:00 a.m. on September 19, ejecting the warhead from its silo. 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. [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. Eventually, it was foundin a ditch about 200 yards away from the silo. Slumbering just beneath the earth, a silent army of nuclear warheads waited for the outbreak of armageddon during the Cold War. The only thought I had at that point was, I know Im a dead man. 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. They were Titan II missile silos that housed nuclear weapons on a Gemini rocket, designed to be launched into space in under one minute. Offer subject to change without notice. Theres a unique history surrounding Little Rock, Arkansas that you may not know about. He said, "The same as it was when you came in." A civilian crew was working throughout all nine floors of the missile silo, which plunged 150 into the ground. "TheThree Side" 373-1: 373-3: 373-2 . Where's this story? Follow us on social media to add even more wonder to your day. The man behind the counter actually looked like a street person, a homeless man. The Air Force also chose two other states to site Titan II missiles: Arizona and Kansas. Vince Guerrieri is a writer based in the Cleveland area. 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. Placed on the western edges of the Soviet Union due to their limited range of 2,000 kilometers, the Sandals could . After finally reaching Limon we discovered that two of the three motels in town had shut down and the only one open, the KS Motel, was it. What Happens to Pilots That Defect to the U.S.? This area now serves as a bedroom with two queen-sized beds or can be rearranged to be used a conference/presentation area with chairs and two interactive whiteboards. Sign up for our newsletter and enter to win the second edition of our book. "Basically, what your smart phone can do today, the bottom floor of the launch control center did back then," Hill said. Both areas were then filled in with concrete, scrap iron, gravel and dirt, and the property wasreturned to the previous landowners. The main theory is that when the vent switch was pushed, it sparked the explosion, Devlin says. 7 . Here's what the terrifying incident . The police facilitating the movement of the population in Little Rock following the explosion at Damascus. The next, they were bracing against an explosion that destroyed the facility beyond repair. We depend on ad revenue to craft and curate stories about the worlds hidden wonders. 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. Missile Guidance Speed Image AIM-7 Sparrow: Semi-active radar homing: Mach 4: AIM-9 Sidewinder: Infrared homing: Unverified (Mach 2.7) AIM-120 AMRAAM: Active radar homing: 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. Visitors to the site first descend down the 50 feet to a concrete pad, where they are greeted by the first of two 6,000-pound blast doors, one of which was kept closed at all times during the Cold War. The last of the Titan launch sites in Arkansas, located near Quitman in Cleburne County, was demolished on Nov. 19, 1986. It was dank and smelled of fresh vomit. There was a lot of white smoke, Ayala tells Popular Mechanics, but it was hydrazine.. His weekly column won the H. L. Mencken Award in 1985. In 1965, dozens of people died after a fire started in a Titan II silo in Arkansas. You don't know who you were killing. Check out the other articles in the series: The demon core that killed two scientists, missing nuclear warheads, the bombs that fell on North Carolina, and the underground test that didnt stay that way. The AP will not be held liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions therefrom or in the transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages arising from any of the foregoing. 75) of Scorpion is largely based on this event. On the night of September 18, 1980, a Titan II missile carrying a thermonuclear warhead exploded in rural Arkansas. But we dealt with hydrazine [the fuel] and nitrogen tetroxide [the oxidizer] every day. Devlin, now retired in Florida and a childrens book author, says he has osteoporosis and believes the hydrazine he inhaled caused it. The Titan II ICBM Missile Silo 374-7 Site, located west of U.S. 65, 1.7 miles north of intersection with Arkansas Highway 124 near Southside in Van Buren County, is nationally significant by virtue of its unique and exceptionally important history within the Titan II program: it was the site of a September 1980 accident that severely damaged . He started the radio station after his previous employer, Dogpatch, a Li'l Abner theme park, went belly-up. King remembers sitting on the hood of a sheriffs car, aimlessly slipping his shoes on and off. 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. So every minute counted.". The missile was not armed at the time. John Hooks Well, first we got to dig into how they got here in the first place. Lately, many have been closed and the . Like us on Facebook to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. The PTS crew stayed at the site as an investigative crewDevlin, Rex Hukle, David Livingston, and Jeffrey K. Kennedyarrived. The Damascus missile complex was at the Southside location, indicated by the red star on the map above. On September 19, 1980, a second tragedy struck the 308th Strategic Missile Wing. There do remain some active missile silos, in montana, north dakota, and at warren air force base, which is in both colorado and wyoming. Titan Ranch is located in Vilonia, Arkansas, just northeast of Conway. Warren Air Force Base In Wyoming. The Cold War was over, and with it the threat of annihilation right? That's how far it is from Rockyford to Limon. [2] The warhead landed a short distance away and no radioactive material was lost. The missile sites in Arkansas fanned out from the base into Cleburne, Conway, Faulkner, Van Buren and White counties. Like Atlas Obscura and get our latest and greatest stories in your Facebook feed. Kimberly S. Mitchell loves journeys, real or imagined. [2] The entire missile launch complex was destroyed. Nodak, based in Grand Forks, served 55 missile silos around the region. All too soon, it was time to check out. 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. It took a while to locate the nine-megaton nuclear warhead in the dark and gloom; it was still intact and not leaking. Titan II was developed as much for use in space flight as it was for an ICBM, Stumpf says. locate Taxi from niagara falls ny to canada. The Titan II entered active service with the U.S. Air Force in 1963. The AirBnB listing even drew the attention of a couple central Arkansas musicians, who filmed three music videos inside the facility. We met with Nick, one of the current hosts, who led us down the steps into the bunker. If you saw footage from the massive explosion in Beirut this past August, King says, you saw what he saw that morning. They were Titan II missile silos that housed nuclear weapons on a Gemini rocket, designed to be launched into space in under one minute. Driving up to the ranch, you would never guess that youre headed to an underground missile silo. This photograph is considered public domain and has been cleared for release. Investigations including a congressional inquiry delved into the Damascus tragedy. The initial PTS team was sent home. After a decommissioned Titan II missile silo in Arizona was sold in just two weeks late last year, two more desert silos . 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. [2], At daybreak, the Air Force retrieved the warhead,[9][10] which was returned to the Pantex weapons assembly plant. We backed out of the room quickly and asked for another room. Workers from . Whiteman Air Force Base (AFB) was headquarters for the 510th Strategic Missile Squadron of the 351st Strategic Missile Wing, consisting of 150 Minuteman II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) silos and 15 launch control facilities spread over 14 counties of west central Missouri . By 1986 these sites were all decommissioned and destroyed. But not before my kids donned their Star Wars Mandalorian costumes for a little photo shoot. The next morning, my kids enjoyed the donuts Id brought for them and another movie on the projector. The 18 Arkansas Titan II sites were a third of the total Titan II fleet in service from 1963 until 1984. Six Young Women of Color Making a Difference in Arkansas, Crystal Bridges 2023 Exhibitions Unveiled, Things To Do In Independence and Stone Counties, KOKY: The Peoples Station in Little Rock, This Month in Arkansas History: September | Only In Arkansas, Military Bases in Arkansas - Only In Arkansas. And around 3:05 a.m., all hell broke loose, he tells Popular Mechanics. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. It is a long and lonely route. Find out more at KSMitchell.com. Many were built in Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota. Layer by Layer: A Mexico City Culinary Adventure, Sacred Granaries, Kasbahs and Feasts in Morocco, Monster of the Month: The Hopkinsville Goblins, Writing the Food Memoir: A Workshop With Gina Rae La Cerva, Reading the Urban Landscape With Annie Novak, How to Grow a Dye Garden With Aaron Sanders Head, Making Scents: Experimental Perfumery With Saskia Wilson-Brown, Indigenous Desserts of Turtle Island With Mariah Gladstone, University of Massachusetts Entomology Collection, The Frozen Banana Stands of Balboa Island, The Paratethys Sea Was the Largest Lake in Earths History, How Communities Are Uncovering Untold Black Histories, The Medieval Thieves Who Used Cats, Apes, and Turtles as Accomplices. We spent the next 300 miles trying to shoo flies out of interior of our vehicle. More than half of the potential arsenal is in Amarillo, Texas, at the Pantex plant, which will dismantle them. Rachel Silva, who organized the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program's history walk Sept. 12, shows a photo of a typical missile control room during a tour on the site of the 1980 missile . His 4-year-old great-granddaughter held the calf in the passenger seat, trying to hug it back to . The Pentagon plans to spend $264 billion on its next-generation ICBM program, which . On September 19, 1980, a second tragedy struck the 308th Strategic Missile Wing. Answer (1 of 19): Used to be in the middle of the countrywhere they were safer from sneak attacks. The incident occurred on September 1819, 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 inside its silo.[2]. The countdown to launch started and thenright before the signal to ignite the rocket would have been givenit was stopped. We drove maybe 10 miles before we said anything to each other, King recalls. 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. "Some people get a little nervous down here. It is eerie to see military vehicles and military personnel going to and from these scary silos in the middle of wheat country. The silo which housed the Gemini missile is sealed off and still remains destroyed. The explosion blew the silo blast doors off and sent chunks of debris flying everywhere, including the nine-megaton nuclear warhead that sat atop the missile. As was the case with the Pangburn disaster, the explosion at the Damascus launch site resulted from routine maintenance work. [7][8], Livingston died at the hospital, and 21 others in the immediate vicinity of the blast sustained various injuries; Kennedy struggled with respiratory issues from inhaling oxidizer but survived. "This was a half-a-million project, and I didn't have half-a-million," Hill said. The aerozine 50 fuel immediately began leaking into the launch duct. The North Star Missile Silo was used during the height of the Cold War in the early 1960s and is up for sale, with a price tag of $989,000. The entire motel was quite ramshackled and we entered number 20 with trepidation. The rental space is inside what was once the crew quarters and missile launch control center. [11], The launch complex was never repaired. A total of 54 Titan II missiles, capable of going from launch to a target 8,000 miles away in about half an hour, were installed in Arizona, Kansas, and Arkansas. Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) were developed in response to the Soviet Union achieving nuclear capabilities. A missile took 15 minutes to launch and had to be fueled with a highly flammable mix of kerosene and liquid oxygen. From there, we watched a video all about the missile base, the history, and the long and difficult renovation. The four men at the silo were blown off their feet. The first ICBMs, called Atlas, were ready by 1959 and deployed at air force bases around the nation. Jimmy Roberts and Donald Green saw the explosion. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); We select one featured photo per week, but we show many more in our gallery. Misiles 46 views. Every weekday we compile our most wondrous stories and deliver them straight to you. Should the missile need to be fired in anger, launch instructions would indicate that either Target 1, Target 2, or Target 3 was in the crosshairs; the men firing the ICBMs never knew what the targets actually were. Little Rock, Conway, Searcy, Benton, Heber Springs, Fayetteville, Bentonville, Springdale, Fort Smith, Jonesboro, West Memphis, Batesville, Mountain View, Hot Springs, Pine Bluff, Texarkana, Arkadelphia. The site was closed, and President Ronald Reagan chose to retire the Titan II missile program, announcing his decision a year after the Damascus Titan II missile explosion. The missile could launch in 60 seconds, without the cumbersome raising and fueling procedures the Atlas and Titan I models required. From 1963 to 1987, crews maintained the missiles on 24-hour alert and . The Damascus incident was front page news for at least a few days.

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