"There was metal debris, concrete, all sorts of stuff we had to pull out," he said. This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. 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. 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of Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. Material from the Associated Press is Copyright 2023, Associated Press and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.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. A look inside Level 2 of the Titan Ranch in Vilonia, a decommissioned Titan II nuclear missile facility, featuring two-queen sized beds and a spiral staircase. "This whole facility was designed to shake to survive in case of war," Hill said. 2023 Farmers Bank & Trust. They were Titan II missile silos that housed nuclear weapons on a Gemini rocket, designed to be launched into space in under one minute. "Some people get a little nervous down here. The lake was blue and beautiful and we parked about 25 yards away and opened the hatch of our SUV intent on a nice, tailgate lunch. He was also the station manager and news reporter. AddThis Utility Frame. Around 1 a.m. on September 19, they watched a helicopter and a bus full of people enter the base. We were so used to it that it didnt scare us.. Level 3 also contains the facility's emergency escape tunnel and ladder. We drove maybe 10 miles before we said anything to each other, King recalls. "But that was part of the psychological training. The explosion scattered debris across 400 acres of farmland. The high water table in Arkansas meant that without regular maintenance the bottom of the facility was prone to flood with groundwater. Print Headline: The Titan missile silo disasters. During the Cold War, Arkansas played a role in the protection of the nation by housing a series of intercontinental ballistic missiles across otherwise peaceful farmland. Founder, Native American Journalists Association. "This was a half-a-million project, and I didn't have half-a-million," Hill said. Three of the Arkansas launch sites--in White, Van Buren, and Faulkner counties--have been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. 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. But spend any amount of time here and you'll forget that you're underground," he said. If you saw footage from the massive explosion in Beirut this past August, King says, you saw what he saw that morning. Today they are still used, although . Despite the size of the explosion, no one was hurt in the accident: The second-set of recently reinforced blast doors held. The team started running the procedure for readying the missile for liftoff. 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. Happy #EmployeeAppreciationDay! The unique Cold War-era relic is part of an 11-acre Kansas lot on the market for $380,000. All missiles in the silos are currently Minuteman III (LGM-30G). 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. Placed on the western edges of the Soviet Union due to their limited range of 2,000 kilometers, the Sandals could . The story behind Colorado's Minuteman missiles and the people at the controls. 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. Pen & Quin: International Agents of Intrigue - The Mystery of the Painted Book is her debut novel. 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. 40 Years Ago, We Almost Blew Up Arkansas. "And we don't have any vacancies because there's a tournament in town," he spat. He said, "The same as it was when you came in." The Pentagon plans to spend $264 billion on its next-generation ICBM program, which . The first U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), like the Atlas and the Titan I, were cryogenically fueled, relying on substances like liquid oxygen, which had to be kept cold. Powell was working on a Titan II missile fitted with a thermonuclear warhead, tucked away underground in Damascus, Arkansas. These ICBMs were fueled with Aerozine 50, which allowed the fuel to stay in the missile while stored in its silo. For a one-night stay, I would recommend bringing all of your own food. All that was left to do was return the missile back to its silo and remove the dangerous oxidizer. The missile base I visited, Foxtrot-01, is right there on Google Maps. And the origin of those dates back to the height of the Cold War in the 1950s and '60s, specifically the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957. Kennedy went down into the silo by himself to get readings. It took six years to retire the missiles, demolish the launch ducts and fill in the silos with debris. Within a couple hours, there was a crowd of about 25 to 30 journalists and law enforcement personnel gathered just outside the gate. 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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. Since it was very hot outside I asked this cadaver of a man, "What's the temperature." Itll be in a port in a shipping container or something like that.. Fortunately, its safety mechanisms prevented any loss of nuclear material. Fueled and ready to go 24 hours a day, Titan IIs could be ready to go at a moment's notice. It's what happened on the journey that prompts this week's column. "When we designed this, it was designed for couples as a kind-of getaway space," Hill said. From Level 2, visitors may climb a spiral staircase to Level 1which previously served as the crew's sleeping quarters and kitchen or descend to Level 3, which housed the communication equipment that kept the facility connected to the larger world. [8][17], Jeff Plumb's account of his role in the incident was featured in a 2017 episode of WBEZ's This American Life. 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. On September 19, 1980, a second tragedy struck the 308th Strategic Missile Wing. Its a bit of a chilling experience. Many were built in Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota. It had happened before. 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 elevator structure and the launchertons and tons of steel that one witness later likened to red spaghetticame flying from the silo as the test team ran for cover. The air turned white and chunks of steel-reinforced concrete fell out of the sky after the fuel ignited. On the way up, Livingston and Kennedy were told to turn an exhaust fan on. If you need to flag this entry as abusive. We stopped at Rockyford, Colorado about 6 p.m. and walked into the lobby of the only motel in town. The site is also booked for a wedding later this year. About a half-mile down the road, Sgts. I . Here are some maps showing the locations of U.S. Minuteman III ICBM silo's along with coordinates. Visitors actually drive over the top of the former missile silo on their way to the LCC. "Basically, what your smart phone can do today, the bottom floor of the launch control center did back then," Hill said. He can be reached at [email protected]. 2010 Native Sun News. Designed by The Twiggs Group. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard with the Class of 1990. They were simple-looking white canisters. Illustration: Ada Amer/Background image: Public Domain. 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. NORTHERN WELD COUNTY If it weren't for the 184-foot tall antenna tower stretching far above the prairie, many . During the next year, the other 18 missile silos in central arkansas received icbms, and jan. 5 megaton hydrogen bomb and was likely a target of the soviet nuclear arsenal. But we dealt with hydrazine [the fuel] and nitrogen tetroxide [the oxidizer] every day. God. It was sitting there at a moments notice, and putting the enemy on notice that they couldnt win the war.. "It's a little weird," Hill said. An eye-opening journey through the history, culture, and places of the culinary world. One of the strangest things about the master suite is the domed concrete ceiling. 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. [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. Hed worked on the Manhattan Project and had retired to Damascus after years in Los Alamos, New Mexico. We hurriedly put our food away, closed the hatchback and put some distance between ourselves and the pasture. It is eerie to see military vehicles and military personnel going to and from these scary silos in the middle of wheat country. Of course the flies didn't swarm on us until we opened the tailgate and started to prepare our lunch. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused! After a half hourthey could only stay in the silo that long because of their oxygen tanksthey came back up. 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. If the Soviets had missiles, then the Americans needed them, too. Miraculously, only one person died: Livingston, in a local hospital the day after the explosion of pulmonary edema, sometimes called dry drowning. The Damascus Titan missile explosion (also called the Damascus accident[1]) was a 1980 U.S. nuclear weapons incident involving a Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev signed the START Treaty in 1991. 75) of Scorpion is largely based on this event. The Titans sat fueled and ready to go at a moments noticebut that meant constant monitoring and maintenance. The Damascus incident was front page news for at least a few days. Only two men escaped the silo, both telling stories of horror. The newly formed 308th Strategic Missile Wing oversaw the operation of 18 missile sites, manned by groups of four soldiers 24 hours a day. The blast and thermal effects within a dozen miles or so of each of these silo's will be deadly, and the fallout radiation will . We always take Highway 71 South taking us through Kimball, Nebraska and Limon, Colorado coming out at Highway 25 at Trinidad, Colorado. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Once clear of the silo, the second stage exploded. 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. Here's what the terrifying incident . 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. Mondale and Jimmy Carter lost their bid for re-election in 1980. The incident occurred on September 18-19, 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 . But the effects of the explosion and working with the potentially toxic fuel linger for many of the airmen who were on site. A piece of Cold War history is now available as an Airbnb property.. Titan Ranch, located at 23 Missile Base Road in Vilonia, Arkansas, offers renters the chance to spend a night underground in a converted intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) facility.The facility was one of 18 underground Titan II missile silos in Arkansas that helped form the backbone of the United States' nuclear . On Aug. 9, 1965, a fire and the resulting loss of oxygen in a silo near Searcy, Arkansas, killed 53 people, most of them civilian repairmen doing maintenance on the facility. Arkansas was home to 18 Titan II ICBMs in a missile field located north of Conway. Janet Choate: An Everyday Hero of Small-Town U.S.A. There were tons of movie options for children and my kids had a blast watching Paddington on the huge white walls of the silo. When the socket fell, it plunged 70 feet to pierce the side of the . 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. From 1963 to 1987, crews maintained the missiles on 24-hour alert and . 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. Like us on Facebook to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living near Glen Rose in rural Hot Spring County. In April 2018, Atlas Obscura told the stories of five nuclear accidents that burst into public view. Ayala said Livingston, a native of Heath, a small town in central Ohio, would let him use his ham radio to talk to people in his hometown in the Bronx. 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 . Theyd heard on the scanner there was something going on at Missile Complex 374-7, the Titan II Missile installation in nearby Damascus. Twenty years ago Kansas, Arkansas and Arizona were littered with nuclear missiles, ready to be deployed at a moment's notice. We may earn commission if you buy from a link. The triad, along with assigned . The first missile silo was listed in november 2019 for $395,000, and sold for $420,000. When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into space in 1957, it made the idea of long-range nuclear bombers obsolete. The first Titan II missile in Arkansas was installed in a silo near Searcy in 1963. [14], In September 2013, Eric Schlosser published a book titled Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. Fuel vapor started to fill the silo. The facility's master bedroom, on Level 1, features a king-sizedbed and remote controlled fireplace. The Damascus missile complex was at the Southside location, indicated by the red star on the map above. The warhead was found 100 feet from the launch complex. While I wouldnt recommend this for small children, its certainly a bucket list-worthy experience for adults and older children. The first missile launch facility was located in jersey shore,. Out of 55 workers, only two survived. Nuclear weapons are just ideal for that., The next nuclear bomb to go off will not be delivered by a missile. His weekly column won the H. L. Mencken Award in 1985. Amazingly, we all slept wonderfully. 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. 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]. From 1963 to 1987, crews maintained the missiles on 24-hour alert and were ready to initiate launch within minutes after receipt of authenticated orders from the National Command Authorities. [2], At daybreak, the Air Force retrieved the warhead,[9][10] which was returned to the Pantex weapons assembly plant. Follow us on Twitter to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. A bathroom with a bathtub and a double shower helps break up the circular feel of the LCC's top floor. 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. Titan I missiles were stored in silo lifts and had to be raised to the surface to be fueled before launch. 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. (Not coincidentally, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee at the time the missiles were installed was Arkansas Democrat Wilbur Mills.) 5 Specifications. Investigations including a congressional inquiry delved into the Damascus tragedy. 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. They were ordered to leave the launch duct when the measurements proved alarmingly high. 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. Both areas were then filled in with concrete, scrap iron, gravel and dirt, and the property wasreturned to the previous landowners. Where's this story? Its a lot of heavy information in a short time, but worth absorbing every minute of it. [5] Powell later claimed that he was already below ground in his safety suit when he realized he had brought the wrong wrench, so he chose to continue rather than turn back. Eventually, it was foundin a ditch about 200 yards away from the silo. The united states built many missile silos in the midwest, away from populated areas. Devlin and Hukle werent certified to work a hydraulic pump, Devlin recalls, and were unsuccessful in trying to manually open a blast lock door. When I needed a break from writing the series, I found myself scrolling around Nebraska and Colorado, looking for silos and . Missiles were programmed with three potential targets. 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(By comparison, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was around 15 kilotons, and the one dropped on Nagasaki was around 21 kilotons. The missile silo itself is one of the few remaining atlas f silos that is naturally dry, with many interior levels and crib structure. but I couldn't see him." 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]. Part of HuffPost Wellness. During the 25-year period of operations, Arkansas experienced two disasters connected to the missiles. 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: A civilian crew was working throughout all nine floors of the missile silo, which plunged 150 into the ground. [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. [2] The warhead landed a short distance away and no radioactive material was lost. That made the trip well worth the bumps along the way. 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 Titan II missile program was terminated by the Reagan administration, but memories still burn brightly among many Arkansans. The missile was not armed at the time. A look inside Level 3 of the Titan Ranch in Vilonia, featuring the facility's emergency escape tunnel and ladder. As if they didn't have enough to worry about. But this never happened. Lucky for us, Nick was very knowledgeable and answered all of our questions. The elderly man behind the counter was a dead ringer for the man lying on a gurney in the movie Young Frankenstein who Gene Wilder, Dr. Frankenstein, assaults unintentionally while instructing a group of medical students. 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. At about 3 a.m., the two men returned to the surface to await further instructions. During the next year, the other 18 missile silos in central Arkansas received ICBMs, and Jan. 1, 1964, all silos in Arkansas were active and on alert status. "Every bullet and bomb used in World War II including the two atomic bombs was only half the yield of what a Titan II was capable of," said Titan Ranch owner GT Hill, who doubles as the facility's historian and tour guide. They were Titan II missile silos that housed nuclear weapons on a Gemini rocket, designed to be launched into space in under one minute. There still wasnt any official word about what was going on, but they all put on rocket fuel handlers coverall outfits (RFHCO)rubberized protective gear that resembled space suitsand walked to the silo, which had been filling with corrosive and potentially explosive vapor for hours. A missile took 15 minutes to launch and had to be fueled with a highly flammable mix of kerosene and liquid oxygen. Two airmen were performing maintenance at Missile Complex 374-7, located 3 miles north of Damascus, the evening of September 18th. "So this is purposefully, 'Hey, you're not in a missile silo.' The land is now under private ownership. The large master bed appears to be floating above the floor, thanks to a creatively designed cantilever. 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Jackie and I set out from Rapid City to Albuquerque for two reasons. The entire process of the opening, cleaning, renovation and updating is documented on his largely followed Titan Ranch YouTube channel, and I highly recommend checking it out. I said, We just left a bunch of dead people back there. He said Yeah, I know. We were sick about it. "You didn't know if it was going to Cuba or if it was going to Moscow," Hill said. Heres what the terrifying incident was like, from those who were there. A total of 21 people were injured. The aerozine 50 fuel immediately began leaking into the launch duct. "From a weapon of mass destruction to hosting birthday parties and weddings, that's pretty wild ride," Hill said. This hidden gem, a former missile silo in Vilonia, Arkansas, was designed not only to survive a nuclear explosion, but also launch a nuclear . The missile not only survived the explosion in 1965, it was the same missile which exploded in 1980 near Damascus. 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. Kimberly S. Mitchell loves journeys, real or imagined. It was morning in America, and the Ronald Reagan administration undertook massive military spendingincluding missiles to supplant the Titan II. Thats the idea of the Titan II. My son was absolutely thrilled to learn how to use the tablet to control the lights in the room. I can recall vividly the September 1980 explosion which destroyed a missile in its silo located near Damascus on the Faulkner-Van Buren County line. 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. At around 6:30 p.m. CDT on Thursday, September 18, 1980, two airmen from a Propellant Transfer System (PTS) team were checking the pressure on the oxidizer tank of a USAF Titan II missile at Little Rock AFB's Launch Complex 374-7. At the end of the 1950s, the United States military began developing the Titans as part of its growing supply of intercontinental ballistic missiles. A socket like the one that punctured the missiles hull. Thats why a Propellant Transfer System (PTS) crew was in the silo in the early evening of September 18, 1980, at the end of a long day, pressurizing the fuel tank of the missile (which, in a morbid coincidence, was the same one that 15 years earlier was in the silo that caught fire). The Reagan Administration decided to . "You could dump dynamite in the bottom, light it off, and these doors would just keep on going," Hill said. 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. You don't know who you were killing.