bottom of the silo. The socket bounced off the thrust mount and struck the missile, causing a leak from a pressurized fuel tank. The missile complex and surrounding area was evacuated. Eight and a half hours later, hypergolic fuel vapors within the silo ignited and exploded with enough force to blow the 740 ton silo door several hundred yards. The incident was classified as a Broken Arrow and would trigger events and procedures for the Strategic Air Command to locate, secure, and recover the ten megaton nuclear warhead that was found six hundred feet away in a drainage ditch. The explosion killed an Air Force specialist and injured twenty-one other USAF personnel.
When Second Lieutenant Sheridan arrived at Little Rock AFB the following week, all hell was breaking out. Talk about your baptism with fire. Sheridan was escorted from the base personnel office by his new sponsor and supervisor, Major Larry Norris. Norris explained how things were very hectic and that it may take a couple of weeks for things to die down and get back to normal. Little did they know, normalcy never would come back to Little Rock AFB. On his way to his new office, Norris brought Sheridan into the Missile Maintenance facility. Laid out on the concrete floor were several shards of twisted metal. Also, what looked like two sets of astronaut suits were laying in a far corner. They were shredded and blood stained as if someone had blasted them a dozen times with a shot gun. One helmet was cracked in a half dozen places. Norris explained that these were the RFHCO or Rocket Fuel Handlers Clothing Outfits worn by two airmen that had volunteered to take explosive fuel vapor buildup readings in the silo just before it exploded. They had just registered and reported explosive level readings pegging the needle and were exiting the silo entrance portal when the blast occurred. One airman was relatively sheltered behind the silo portal door. The other was peppered with shrapnel, concrete, and gravel. He lived only a short while.
Lieutenant Sheridan moved into his new office. He was introduced to Bill Green, a civilian engineer, who had been on the base for nearly twenty years. He also met Chief Mitchell. One piece of advice he remembered from OTS was that when you have an opportunity to work closely with a chief master sergeant, latch on to him and then soak up all the experience and knowledge you can. Between Bill and the Chief, there was nearly fifty years of missile experience to glean.
Bill had arranged for a site visit the next week to an operational missile site. Before that, the days were spent in safety training and security training. This also meant Sheridan had to come up to speed quickly and become intimately familiar with the Titan II systems and their silos. He spent the next week pouring over the weapon system drawings, operations manuals, and schematics.
On the surface, the Titan II launch facilities covered an area of approximately 600 x 600 feet or about eight acres. All of the launch facilities were underground. The silo was built of heavily reinforced concrete, and was 147 feet deep and 55 feet in diameter. They were designed to be “hot launched” from within the silo. To deflect and channel the exhaust gases, each silo was fitted with a flame deflector at the base and two exhaust ducts that ran up the length of the silo, venting to the surface. Inside the silo there were nine levels of equipment rooms and missile access spaces. The 740 ton steel and concrete silo door could be opened in 17 to 20 seconds.
The silo was connected to the missile control center by a 250 foot long access tunnel. Between the silo and the launch control center was the blast lock, a single level, heavily reinforced concrete structure containing three rooms. To enter the launch facility the missile crews descended through a 35 foot deep access portal that opened into the blast lock area. Each end of the blast lock was covered by a pair of large steel blast doors, each weighing 6,000 pounds. They were designed to protect the launch center from either a surface nuclear blast, or the explosion of the missile within the silo. The doors were designed to withstand an overpressure of 1000 psi; while being so perfectly balanced on their hinges, a single person could manually open them.
The launch control center was a dome-shaped, reinforced concrete structure 37 feet in diameter containing three levels. The three floors within the launch center were suspended from the ceiling by massive springs to minimize blast shock. The control center provided space for all of the launch control and communications equipment, as well as a mess and sleeping quarters for the four-person combat crew.
The TITAN II ICBM measured 110 feet in length and 10 feet in diameter, utilized in excess of 200,000 pounds of two part hypergolic propellant, igniting on contact, and produced 530,000 pounds of thrust. The TITAN II had a target range of 5,500 miles.
It is a two stage liquid fueled booster, designed to provide a small to medium weight class capability and able to lift approximately 4,200 pounds into a polar low-Earth circular orbit.
There were 54 Titan IIs placed on alert despite the fielding of more than 1,000 of the much easier to operate solid fueled LGM-30 Minuteman. This was because the huge 10 megaton warheads of these few Titan IIs represented almost 30 percent of the overall ICBM megatonage of the USAF’s Strategic Air Command (SAC).
The Titan II was a very reliable missile; it was therefore used by NASA in the Gemini manned spaceflight program. Initially, the USAF made very limited use of the Titan II as a space launch vehicle under the strategic launch vehicle (SLV-4) designator.
Sheridan’s first official task as a newly commissioned officer was to support the accident investigation and assist in disaster recovery. This included methods to monitor groundwater contamination and assist in fuel decontamination of the destroyed silo.
Bill made arrangements to get a base chopper to ferry them out to Silo 4-7 early that morning. When they arrived at the helicopter operations center, both went through the safety and preflight brief and then walked out onto the ramp. The sun was just coming up and it was hoped that the fog would burn off before they got airborne and out to the site. This was his first chopper flight and he couldn’t wait. The crew chief helped him strap in. The seat belt and shoulder straps had a weird quick-release system. After he was snugged up, the crew chief just smiled, gave a com check on the intercom headset, and then pointed to where the barf bags were. The unwritten rule was if you chuck it up, you cleaned it up. It didn’t matter if you were a buck sergeant or a four star general.
After the preflight and all the “remove before flight” ribbons were removed, the flight crew hopped in. This was going to be a training flight. There was another butter bar in the right seat of the chopper. The turbines were started, radios set, flight instruments set, and then rotors engaged. The rpm spun up and the chopper began to shake violently.
Several rivets, screws, nuts, and bolts were dancing around the floor. The crew chief grinned and calmly pulled out a whisk broom to sweep them into a coffee can. “More of these where those came from, Lieutenant.”
Just then the pilot pulled on the collective stick and the chopper rose about ten feet off the ramp. The chopper hovered for a while and then taxied off the ramp onto the runway. As the pilot pushed in the cyclic stick, the good ol’ Huey nosed downward. It looked like the ramp was going to smack them all in the face. Instead, the chopper hung nose down as it accelerated down the runway gaining altitude on its outbound trek.
By this time, the fog was burning off and the sun was rising as a big beautiful orange ball on the horizon. The chopper turned north and climbed over a ridge line. Complex 374-7, as it was known, was about sixty miles northwest of the base near a little town called Damascus. The chopper flight was exhilarating.
Up until this time Dave had only flown a total of four times. Once when he was thirteen after spending the summer with a friend in Massachusetts and he flew home in a 727. His father took him up in a Cessna when he was fourteen. His last flight was his flight from Columbus, Ohio to Texas and back after Officer Training School (OTS). He soaked up the experience.
As an engineer he couldn’t keep his eyes off the instruments. The crew enjoyed
