Evening had just begun on a quiet day at the close of summer, but excitement was already brewing. On September 18, 1980, at the Little Rock, Arkansas Air Force Base, a small fuel leak was detected on a Titan missile. Local law enforcement officials alerted the residents and closed neighboring roads.
Despite containing a W-53 ten megaton nuclear warhead, the leak might have been repaired without note, and the incident would have resulted in nothing more than an inconvenience to locals and officials. If not, that is, for a three pound socket wrench. In the course of repairs, a technician dropped the wrench, puncturing the thin metal shell of the missile's fuel tank. The fuel was unsymmetricaldimethylhydrazine, which is hypergolic, meaning that contact between the two contained chemicals would create instant ignition. The silo and the surrounding area were evacuated, up to distances of ten miles away.
It's arguable whether anyone should carry full blame for the results from a single incidence of clumsiness, but ultimately the buttery-fingers of a repair technician had devastating effects. At 0300 hours there was a massive explosion. The 740 ton closure door was thrown from the silo as the second stage of the missile was ejected, exploding shortly thereafter, injuring 21 people and killing one. The land surrounding the silo was littered with concrete and metal debris. The W-53 landed about a hundred feet from the blast site, but thankfully its safety features prevented detonation. Cleanup operations gathered tons of debris from 400 acres and removed 100,000 gallons of contaminated water from the silo. Total cleanup and replacement costs were estimated to be over $20,000,000; not including the price of a new socket wrench.
-Professor Walter
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