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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of Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. Material from the Associated Press is Copyright 2023, Associated Press and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. It is eerie to see military vehicles and military personnel going to and from these scary silos in the middle of wheat country. Every weekday we compile our most wondrous stories and deliver them straight to you. If you need to flag this entry as abusive. Missile Site 8 in Green Valley, Arizona, is a national historic landmark and the home of the Titan Missile Museum. 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. The first thing that makes this particular route interesting is the still active missile silos that dot the highway from Kimball to the Colorado border. Three of the Arkansas launch sites--in White, Van Buren, and Faulkner counties--have been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The tanks that held the rockets fuel and oxidizers broke open, mixed, and exploded. The silos cover, made of hundreds of tons of concrete, was half destroyed. We didnt want to leave, but I understand why they wanted us to leave.. Vince Guerrieri is a writer based in the Cleveland area. Please try viewing this website in Edge, Mozilla, Chrome, or another modern browser. The situation was critical. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. I heard somebody yelling "Help me! The warhead was found 100 feet from the launch complex. Two of the most serious disasters to plague the Titan II missile program during the Cold War occurred in Arkansas. Visitors actually drive over the top of the former missile silo on their way to the LCC. 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. By then, a lot of the documents detailing just how bad the incident wasand how close wed come before to accidental nuclear explosions had been declassified. Of course, thats just as true on purpose as it is on accident. 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. 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. 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. The high water table in Arkansas meant that without regular maintenance the bottom of the facility was prone to flood with groundwater. which pertains to intellectual property restrictions (e.g., copyright and On the way up, Livingston and Kennedy were told to turn an exhaust fan on. King remembers sitting on the hood of a sheriffs car, aimlessly slipping his shoes on and off. Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is the editor and publisher of Native Sun News. This hidden gem, a former missile silo in Vilonia, Arkansas, was designed not only to survive a nuclear explosion, but also launch a nuclear . Two years earlier, a trailer at Damascus leaked oxidizer, the component that mixes with rocket fuel to propel a rocket into space or toward a strategic target. "It's all illuminated. They tried to recreate it in an empty silo, and it bounced into the wall. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard with the Class of 1990. 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. Devlin, now retired in Florida and a childrens book author, says he has osteoporosis and believes the hydrazine he inhaled caused it. However, thanks to the ingenuity and tenacity of one person with a unique determination, one of those missile sites have been renovated into a luxury rental that you can stay in! Christ explained that the deaths were not caused by the explosion itself, but by the rapid loss of oxygen. King decided to hang around. "Then there was the water.". If the Soviets had missiles, then the Americans needed them, too. Of course the flies didn't swarm on us until we opened the tailgate and started to prepare our lunch. We backed out of the room quickly and asked for another room. President Reagan announced plans to retire the Titan II program in September 1981, only one year after the Damascus disaster. The explosion scattered debris across 400 acres of farmland. The Titan missile silo disasters. Devlin and Hukle werent certified to work a hydraulic pump, Devlin recalls, and were unsuccessful in trying to manually open a blast lock door. In the silo, they have a close-up view of the missile from less than ten feet away. King was part owner of KGFL-AM in Clinton, Arkansas. Founder, Native American Journalists Association. The missile was installed later that month at the Albion site, northwest of Searcy, Ark., but not active until May. tercontinental ballistic missile wing, has the largest number of active fense Council (NRDC) and Hans M. Krisair force weapons. The other B-52 wing at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana has more than 900 warheads, and White-man AFB in Missouri has more than 130 bombs for its B-2 bombers. Unsettling as that history may be, its worth it just to say you did it. The nearly 4,000 square-foot LCC now sleeps six comfortably and can hold as many as 70 visitors for a meeting or conference. The unique Cold War-era relic is part of an 11-acre Kansas lot on the market for $380,000. The Titan II missile program was terminated by the Reagan administration, but memories still burn brightly among many Arkansans. Two airmen were performing maintenance at Missile Complex 374-7, located 3 miles north of Damascus, the evening of September 18th. 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 . Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Livingston was posthumously promoted to staff sergeant. You may know that theres an Air Force base there. That's a multimillion dollar project to do anything with it," he said. Here's what the terrifying incident . Livingston lay amid the rubble of the launch duct for some time before security personnel located and evacuated him. Also some used to be in Arkansasthe Titan or Atlas missilesuntil one blew its fuel loadbecause of a dropped wrenchand threw its payload quite a distance. We always take Highway 71 South taking us through Kimball, Nebraska and Limon, Colorado coming out at Highway 25 at Trinidad, Colorado. 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One can visualize men in uniform going about their business far below the surface of the earth, manning and maintaining the silos with their guided missiles armed with nuclear warheads smack in the middle of Colorado while cattle graze peacefully just outside of the wire fences enclosing the silos. Little Rock, Conway, Searcy, Benton, Heber Springs, Fayetteville, Bentonville, Springdale, Fort Smith, Jonesboro, West Memphis, Batesville, Mountain View, Hot Springs, Pine Bluff, Texarkana, Arkadelphia. Then it faded into relative obscurity. 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. The chances of all this happening were so remote, David Stumpf, the author of .css-3wjtm9{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.125rem;text-decoration-color:#1c6a65;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:inherit;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-3wjtm9:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}Titan II: A History of a Cold War Missile Program, tells Popular Mechanics. Police discussing evacuation plans after the explosion. We stopped at Rockyford, Colorado about 6 p.m. and walked into the lobby of the only motel in town. Sequential photographs showing the launching of the Titan II ICBM weapon firing from underground silos, circa 1965. King and Phillips arrived at the site at the same time as Van Buren County Sheriff Gus Anglin, and they were all greeted by military security personnel, who told them no evacuation of the area was necessary at that point. Locked into a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union, the United States developed the Titan II rocket system in the 1960s to be the nation'sfirst missile that could be launched from an underground silo. [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. Active Weapons; Russia: 6,490: 4,490: United States: 6,185: 3,800: France: 300: 300: China: 290: 290: Where are the missile silos in the United States? Unlike its predecessor, the Titan II used hypergolic propellant, with fuel and oxidizer stored in the missileat room temperatureand mixed to launch almost instantaneously. The W53 thermonuclear warhead landed about 100 feet (30m) from the launch complex's entry gate. After a half hourthey could only stay in the silo that long because of their oxygen tanksthey came back up. 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. (February 2011) Air-to-air missiles. Since it was very hot outside I asked this cadaver of a man, "What's the temperature." What you may not know is that at one time, there were 18 ICBM (intercontinental nuclear missile) silos surrounding the Little Rock area. Its a bit of a chilling experience. For a one-night stay, I would recommend bringing all of your own food. Our stay at Titan Ranch began with driving down the gravel road, leading between cow pastures, the reason for the name ranch. Cows looked back at us, munching away, while we wondered if we were headed to the right place. Before the unit inactivated, a Mark VI re-entry vehicle from the last Titan II ICBM on alert status in Strategic Air Command was dedicated in Heritage Park. A look inside Level 3 of the Titan Ranch in Vilonia, featuring the facility's emergency escape tunnel and ladder. Is Russias Only Aircraft Carrier Cursed? We got some weird looks. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Today, the area is home to one of the most mind-blowing destinations in the state. They realized it was way worse, not worse than we felt it would be, but probably worse than a lot of other people thought, Devlin says. NORTHERN WELD COUNTY If it weren't for the 184-foot tall antenna tower stretching far above the prairie, many . Reports in the Arkansas Gazette described the devastation: "The inside of the 155-foot-deep silo was reduced to rubble and its concrete doors which weigh 740 tons were blown to pieces. When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into space in 1957, it made the idea of long-range nuclear bombers obsolete. There was a lot of white smoke, Ayala tells Popular Mechanics, but it was hydrazine.. This time, Livingston and Kennedy went down. Powell was working on a Titan II missile fitted with a thermonuclear warhead, tucked away underground in Damascus, Arkansas. Its safety features prevented any loss of radioactive material or nuclear detonation. The missile silo itself is one of the few remaining atlas f silos that is naturally dry, with many interior levels and crib structure. After a decommissioned Titan II missile silo in Arizona was sold in just two weeks late last year, two more desert silos . "That's one of the very few things about the Titan IIs that remain classified," he said. You have to try it to see what I mean. On May 22, 1958, a crew was servicing Nike missiles at a site in Middletown, N.J. One missile exploded, starting a chain reaction that set off seven others, causing what the Associated Press . By comparison, a house my be blown down by 5 psi of pressure, he said. In 1965, dozens of people died after a fire started in a Titan II silo in Arkansas. But this never happened. On Feb. 6, 1963, the first Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile assigned to the 308th Strategic Missile Wing at Little Rock Air Force Base arrived. It is eerie to see military vehicles and military personnel going to and from these scary silos in the middle of wheat country. By 9 p.m. the Air Force had a team on site and began evacuating personnel as well as some local residents. The second fuel tank, sitting just above the first, contained a different fuel that could spontaneously ignite if a collapse occurred and it came into contact with the aerozine 50 already in the launch duct. 5 Specifications. About a half-mile down the road, Sgts. His book Children Left Behind was awarded the Bronze Medal by Independent Book Publishers. 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: Nuclear weapons are just ideal for that., The next nuclear bomb to go off will not be delivered by a missile. To this day, those Titan II targets remain classified, he said. [1][15][16] A documentary film titled Command and Control from director Robert Kenner, based on Schlosser's book, was released on January 10, 2017. This left the powerful nuclear warheads exposed to attack. 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. "Basically, what your smart phone can do today, the bottom floor of the launch control center did back then," Hill said. He excavated the entrance to the LCC, opening the door to the facility in October 2010. Offer available only in the U.S. (including Puerto Rico). Despite the criticism, the U.S. appears to be committed to the idea of a nuclear sponge in those five states. These sites in Springhill in Faulkner County, Southside in Van Buren County and Center Hill in White County are now on the National Register of Historic Places. Originally, the launch control center had standard steps to reach multiple levels. Maps to the LRAFB missile sites Be warned Arkansas Farmers aren't against shooting trespassers! The initial PTS team was sent home. So every minute counted.". The Hami missile silo field is in a much earlier . 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. 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. The first missile silo was listed in november 2019 for $395,000, and sold for $420,000. A 1961 decommissioned Atlas-F intercontinental ballistic missile silo complex is for sale. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev signed the START Treaty in 1991. "If we built rooms, it would kind of take away from it.". Itll be in a port in a shipping container or something like that.. Driving up to the ranch, you would never guess that youre headed to an underground missile silo. The rental space is inside what was once the crew quarters and missile launch control center. The facility's master bedroom, on Level 1, features a king-sizedbed and remote controlled fireplace. After the missiles were retired, they were again used as space launchcraft until the last one was launched in 2003. The missile was more than 100 feet in length and 10 feet wide. The missile was installed later that month at the Albion site, northwest of Searcy, Ark., but not active until May. 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. The Damascus missile complex was at the Southside location, indicated by the red star on the map above. Crews of four men would work 24-hour shifts, followed by 24 hours off. The Titan II entered active service with the U.S. Air Force in 1963. Though these missiles were judged essential to the protection of the United States, storing and maintaining them proved deadly. [14], In September 2013, Eric Schlosser published a book titled Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. That made the trip well worth the bumps along the way. Follow us on social media to add even more wonder to your day. This photograph is considered public domain and has been cleared for release. If you would like to republish please give the photographer appropriate credit. Visitors to Titan Ranch stay inside the former ICBM facility's launch control center (LCC), located 50 feet underground. Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) systems were . He called the station, and word spread. Using decades-old U.S. Air Force training footage, re-enactments and drone . Arkansas was home to 18 Titan II ICBMs in a missile field located north of Conway. Fortunately, the situation stabilized and the grim task of removing the bodies began. The Air Force-owned property houses the only remaining Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile complex left of the 54 that were active during the Cold War. Tell Us About the Most Amazing Parts of Tulsa, Oklahoma! Your email address will not be published. Both areas were then filled in with concrete, scrap iron, gravel and dirt, and the property wasreturned to the previous landowners. In southeastern Wyoming, portions of the silo field are . But the newly constructed test facility was so badly damaged it wasnt worth salvaging. They were Titan II missile silos that housed nuclear weapons on a Gemini rocket, designed to be launched into space in under one minute. We hurriedly put our food away, closed the hatchback and put some distance between ourselves and the pasture. Required fields are marked *. All the guys that walked down with their RHFCO suits, I just assumed they were all killed.. "It was designed to remain intact enough to retaliate if necessary.". One moment, the team at the new operational test facility had been on the verge of celebrating, finally, a successful trial run of the launch sequence for the powerful Titan I missile. Livingston died of his injuries [later] that day." All missiles in the silos are currently Minuteman III (LGM-30G). 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. At a station that small, King couldnt afford to specialize. Mondale and Jimmy Carter lost their bid for re-election in 1980. 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. 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. You don't know who you were killing. While these missiles were retired in 1987, the company that made them, Martin-Marietta (by then Lockheed Martin) took them back and reconditioned them for space use. Hed worked on the Manhattan Project and had retired to Damascus after years in Los Alamos, New Mexico. KGFL, Sid Kings radio station, had a daytime-only license, but this was a big enough exception that King was on the air by 3:30 a.m., telling everyone to get the hell out of there. By 4 a.m., the studio was full of people and a flurry of activity. What to Know Before You Get Started, 4 Essential Tips for Applying for a Mortgage Online as an MBA Student. An airman dropped a wrench socket and it fell 80 feet and pierced the thin skin of the rockets first stage fuel tank. Kimberly S. Mitchell loves journeys, real or imagined. The next, they were bracing against an explosion that destroyed the facility beyond repair. No purchase necessary. regarding use of images of identifiable personnel, appearance of endorsement, and related matters. And around 3:05 a.m., all hell broke loose, he tells Popular Mechanics. 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. A civilian crew was working throughout all nine floors of the missile silo, which plunged 150 into the ground.