Eric Schlosser - Command and Control

TWO AIR FORCE REPORTS on the Titan II were released to the public in January 1981. One assessed the overall safety of the missile, and the other provided a lengthy account of the accident at Damascus. According to the Eighth Air Force Missile Accident Investigation Board, Launch Complex 374-7 and its Titan II were destroyed by three separate explosions. The first occurred when fuel vapor ignited somewhere inside the complex. The vapor could have been ignited by a spark from an electric motor, by a leak from the stage 1 oxidizer tank, or by the sudden collapse of the missile. A small explosion was followed by a much larger one, as the stage 1 oxidizer tank ruptured, allowing thousands of gallons of fuel and oxidizer to mix. The blast wave from this explosion tore apart the upper half of the silo, tossed the silo door two hundred yards, and launched the second stage of the Titan II into the air. The door was already gone by the time the missile left the silo. The second stage soared straight upward, carrying the warhead, and then briefly flew parallel to the ground. Its rocket engine had been shoved into its fuel tank by the blast. Fuel and oxidizer leaked, causing the third explosion, producing a massive fireball, and hurling the warhead into the ditch.

The accident investigation board determined the sequence of events by examining the fragmentation patterns of the missile and silo debris. Pieces of the second stage were found almost half a mile from the silo, while most of the first stage was scattered within three hundred feet of it. The narrative offered by the report was factual and thorough. But the Air Force seemed more interested in describing how the accident unfolded than in establishing why it happened. “It may not be important whether the immediate cause that initiated the explosive events is precisely known,” the board argued, “since, over a period of time, there were so many potential ignition sources available….”

The Titan II Weapon System Review Group report was prepared for members of Congress. The report contained a number of criticisms and a long list of recommendations for making the missile safer. It said that the vapor detectors in Titan II silos were broken 40 percent of the time, that the portable vapor detectors rarely worked, that the radio system at launch complexes was unreliable and needed to be replaced, that missile combat crews should be discouraged from evacuating the control center during an emergency, that the shortage of RFHCO suits often forced maintenance teams to be selected on the basis of who’d fit into the available suits instead of who knew how to do a particular job, that the suits and helmets were obsolete, that the air packs were obsolete, that some of the missile’s spare parts were either hard to obtain or no longer manufactured, that security police officers should always be provided with maps, that lightning arrestors and other “modern safing features” should be added to the W-53 warhead so that it would meet “modern nuclear safety criteria for abnormal environments.” The report also said that having a warning siren at every launch complex might be useful. The Titan II missile system was “potentially hazardous,” the Air Force concluded, but “basically safe” and “supportable now and in the foreseeable future.”

Jeff Kennedy was angered by both of the reports. He’d spent weeks in the hospital, battling the damage to his respiratory system, and credited a young pulmonologist, Dr. James S. Anderson — not the Air Force — for saving his life. Anderson had sat at Kennedy’s bedside for almost forty hours straight, forcing him to cough up phlegm and clear his lungs. And Anderson had to improvise the treatment for nitrogen tetroxide exposure, since guidance in the medical literature was scarce and nobody from the Air Force would speak to him, for three days after the accident, about the oxidizer or its harmful effects.

The reports were part of a coverup, Kennedy thought: the Air Force cared more about preserving the image of the Titan II missile than protecting the lives of its own men. The accident investigation board said that Kennedy and Livingston were never ordered to turn on the fan in the launch complex. “Do not operate the switch,” Sergeant Michael Hanson told them over the radio, according to the accident report. “Just go to the switch and stand by.”

Kennedy thought the report was wrong. He and Livingston had both heard the order to turn on the fan. Livingston had signaled that he’d go back down and do it; that was one of Kennedy’s last memories before the explosion. Turning on the fan wasn’t part of their original checklist. It was Hanson’s idea. Hanson had suggested it earlier in the evening, while Kennedy and others were arguing that all the electricity should be shut off. And Kennedy had absolutely no doubt that a spark from the fan had caused the explosion. But now Hanson was saying that an order to turn on the fan had never been given, and Colonel Morris was backing Hanson, making the source of ignition seem like some great big mystery. You didn’t need to be a rocket scientist, Kennedy thought, to figure out why the missile exploded. Livingston obeyed the order, turned on the fan — and seconds later the whole place blew up. And the man who was killed by the error was now being blamed for it.

Livingston’s death deeply affected Kennedy. They were close friends, and his death seemed completely unnecessary. Kennedy thought that his commanders at SAC had made a series of mistakes — the decision to evacuate the control center, the refusal to open the silo door and vent the fuel vapor, the endless wait to reenter the complex, the insistence upon using the access portal instead of the escape hatch, the order to turn on the fan. Worst of all was the feeling that he and Livingston had risked their lives for nothing — and then been abandoned. Livingston had lain on the ground for more than an hour, without his helmet, inhaling oxidizer, before anyone came to help. And the delay in sending a helicopter was incomprehensible.

The morale among the PTS crews at Little Rock Air Force Base was terrible. Airman David Powell, who’d dropped the socket that hit the missile, blamed himself for Livingston’s death. A number of PTS technicians refused to work on Titan II missiles, citing the danger of the job, and their security clearances were revoked. Drug and alcohol use increased. The commander of the 308th Strategic Missile Wing, Colonel John Moser, was abruptly reassigned to a desk job at Fort Ritchie in Maryland, overseeing the monthly replacement of computer tapes for the SIOP — a career-ending move. Moser was well liked, and he hadn’t made the crucial decisions that led to the explosion. Nobody at SAC headquarters was fired. Many of the enlisted men in the 308th thought the Air Force was scapegoating the little guys in order to hide problems with the Titan II and protect the top brass.

A few weeks after the accident investigation board’s report was made public, Jeff Kennedy was served with a formal letter of reprimand by the Air Force. It rebuked him for violating the two-man rule and entering the control center at 4–7 without permission. No mention was made of the valuable information he’d obtained there or the bravery he’d displayed trying to save the missile. Air Force regulations permitted a violation of the two-man rule during an emergency, if lives were at risk. But Kennedy wasn’t granted an exemption from the rule. His punishment sent a clear message: the rowdy, hell-raising culture of the PTS crews would no longer be tolerated. They were held responsible for what had gone wrong, not aging equipment or the decisions made at SAC headquarters. And to enforce strict discipline, an officer now accompanied a PTS crew everywhere, like a babysitter, whenever it visited a missile site.