- For about 10 hours in 1980, the United States faced a nuclear threat of its own making after an airman performing maintenance on a Titan II missile dropped a 9-pound . There was an incident near Damascus, the one in north central Arkansas,. The 1980 Damascus Titan missile explosion is a drastic but poignant example of what can result from assuming everything is going to work perfectly every time, and In this case, it almost wiped an entire state off the map. - For about 10 hours in 1980, the United States faced a nuclear threat of its own making after an airman performing maintenance on a Titan II missile dropped a 9-pound socket 70 . Back in September 1980, September 18, Jeff Plumb climbed into his pickup and headed toward the nuclear missile silo near a tiny town in Arkansas called Damascus. With this more collage-like approach to history, "the bomb" serves as an effective companion piece to "Command and Control," last year's documentary about the 1980 Titan II missile . When detonated, it was estimated the nuclear blast would . Joe Richman, founder of Radio Diaries tells the story. An aerial shot of the silo after the explosion. The movie, developed by director Robert Kenner from Eric Schlosser's book of the same name, reveals how a warhead atop a Titan II missile risked explosion in 1980 at a Strategic Air Command (SAC). Electrostatic ion thrusters are almost an order of magnitude better, on the order of 2,000-3,000 seconds, with some reaching closer to 10,000 seconds in experiments, while the experimental VASIMR . 44 Continue this thread level 2 [deleted] For about 10 hours in 1980, the United States faced a nuclear threat of its own making after an airman performing maintenance on a Titan II missile dropped a 9-pound socket wrench 70 feet, ripping . There, a young worker at a silo for the Titan II ballistic missile, which held the most powerful nuclear warhead the U.S. had ever built, accidentally dropped a socket while doing regular maintenance. The Titan II's power was immensethree times the force of all the bombs dropped in World War II. Anyone who was alive and living in Arkansas in September 1980 almost wasn't -- living, that is -- as it nearly turned out. Courtesy of American . an outdated weapon that, according to then . The Titan carried a substantial 9 megaton W-53 nuclear warhead. Weaving together archival news footage with present-day, first-hand-account interviews, the doc details the nail-biting events that occurred one September eve in 1980 at a Titan II missile complex in Damascus, Arkansas after a maintenance worker innocently dropped a socket - which subsequently punched a hole in the fuel tank of an . Dropped by an airman performing maintenance on a Titan II missile at a launch complex in Damascus, Arkansas, the socket fell 70 feet, ripping a hole in a fuel tank and leading to an explosion that forced a 9-megaton warhead out of the ground. Portions of the film were shot in an abandoned Titan II missile silo in . September 18, 1980, 6:25 p.m., Titan II base in Damascus, Arkansas. . The Damascus Titan missile explosion (also called the Damascus accident) was a 1980 U.S. nuclear weapons incident involving a Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). By. The new documentary Command and Control relates the both fascinating and utterly chilling chain of events surrounding the near-catastrophic explosion of a Titan-II nuclear missile in Damascus . The 1980 Damascus Titan missile explosion is a drastic example of what can result from operating like everything is going to work perfectly every time. Image courtesy of Greg Devlin. It was one of those minor Cold War mishaps that barely made it beyond the local news. It was supposed to be taken out of service more than a decade earlier. Video _____ . of safety, some of which in The Damascus Titan missile explosion (also called the Damascus accident) was a 1980 U.S. nuclear weapons incident involving a Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). Awards & Events. Here's what the terrifying incident . Strange because Command and Control is really two books in one: the first, a detailed and moving account of a serious accident that occurred with a Titan II nuclear-armed missile in 1980 near Damascus, Arkansas; the second, a comprehensive political history of U.S. nuclear strategy, Cold War crises, and the technical efforts in weapons . "The one warhead on a Titan II had three times the explosive force . Ken Grunewald, who served on Titan II launch crews during his career in the Air Force, speaks about the 1980 disaster at Damascus. If The Witness and Tower depict scenarios that could be ripped from today's headlines, Command and Control is hopefully one that feels somewhat unusual a dangerous mistake that potentially could . From Robert Kenner, the director of the groundbreaking film Food, Inc., comes Command and Control, the long-hidden story of a deadly accident at a Titan II missile complex in . The Air Force failure comes less than a year after Eric Schlosser's explosive book Command and Control, which found that the U.S. Air Force has come incredibly close to accidentally setting off nuclear weapons several times.At the "Damascus Incident" in 1980, for example, a worker at an Air Force base dropped a socket during regular missile maintenance and pierced a Titan II ballistic missile . On Sept. 18, 1980, a mechanic at the U.S. Air Force missile base in Damascus, Ark., dropped a socket wrench while he was doing maintenance on a nuclear-tipped Titan II rocket. The author takes the story of the 1980 accident in the Missile Launch Complex 374-7 in Arkansas. The thing that I believe set off the explosion was the maintenance team turning on a ventilation fan (on the orders of . The Titan II intercontinental-range missile, pictured in 1965, sits ready for launch on its 150-feet-deep underground launchpad. On Sept. 19, 1980, the lethal warhead in question was attached to a musty old Titan II missile buried in an underground silo in Damascus, Ark. Courtesy of Greg Devlin After the explosion, Greg Devlin had a shattered ankle, a severed 1980 Titan II missile explosion, Damascus Arkansas 1980 Titan II missile explosion, Damascus Arkansas. You won't find much about the 1980 Damascus Titan Missile Explosion on Wikipedia. The Damascus Accident. the blast killed one airman and injured 21 others. Courtesy of Greg Devlin Greg Devlin standing near the chunk of concrete that almost hit him. On this fateful night an explosion kills an Air Force member and transforms the lives of everyone on the base. On Thursday, September 28 from 6-9 p.m., the Old State House Museum Associates' premier museum fundraiser features Air Force Crewman Greg Devlin, a survivor of the 1980 Damascus Titan II missile explosion, who was featured on the PBS American Experience program "Command and Control." 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 . In September of 1980, routine maintenance work on a U.S. Air Force Titan II missile near Damascus, Arkansas, became a life-and-death crisis. By Isaac Romsdahl. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. The Titan Ii missile exploded in a fireball at its Damascus, Ark., silo Sept. 19, after leaking fuel caught fire. 1980, accident at a Titan II missile silo in Damascus, Ark., that came terrifyingly close to causing a nuclear explosion that would have devastated the entire East Coast. . Aerial view of the 740 ton silo door found 700 feet off the missile complex. The trouble started when a 21-year-old airman . The 1980 Damascus incident unfolded against this background. For about 10 hours in 1980, the United States faced a nuclear threat of its own making after an airman performing maintenance on a Titan II missile dropped a socket wrench 20 metres, ripping a . September 19, 1980: Damascus, Arkansas When an Air Force repairman in Damascus, Arkansas, dropped his wrench into a Titan II ICBM missile silo during a routine maintenance operation in September . Photo by Arkansas Democrat-Gazette A map showing Titan II. September 18, 2018. HONS. Honing in on a single case of so-called "human error", Command and Control juxtaposes precision on a minute scale against the gargantuan risks inherent in the United States' aggressive nuclear proliferation . It wasn't just bad luck that happened on September 18, 1980, when airman David Powell put a three-foot-long wrench to the top of a Titan II missile and accidentally let the socket drop; recent . Anyway, the Damascus incident was not Arkansas's only deadly missile accident. Odyssey10 failure nuclear missile arkansas nuclear warhead A riveting minute by minute account of the accident started by the failure to follow written maintenence procedures. From 1963-1987, The Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile served as the United States primary weapon of deterrence in the on-going Nuclear Arms Race. Podcasts. On the evening of Sept. 18, 1980, maintenance workers at silo 374-7 near Damascus forgot to bring a 20-pound socket wrench into the silo and instead picked up an unauthorized model that was being. The so-called "Damascus Accident" involved a Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile . Powell was working on a Titan II missile fitted with a thermonuclear warhead, tucked away underground in Damascus, Arkansas. He uses one case to illustrate the military command's unpreparedness for nuclear accidents and disasters: the Sept. 19, 1980 explosion of a Titan II missile inside a silo near Damascus, Ark. An explosion a few hours later . At the heart of the book lies the struggle, amid the rolling hills and small farms of Damascus, Arkansas, to prevent the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead . Just a few words about this important book crafted around the little known 1980 Damascus, Ark., missile accident: The accident involved a Titan II missile (one of 54 in hardened launch silos over . Around that story he weaves an enormous amount of information about the US Air Force Missile Command, its missiles and its command and control structures. Broken Arrow incident involving a Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). Thirty-three years ago to the day, the United States narrowly missed a nuclear holocaust on its soil. So far, there have been 32 incidents (known as "broken arrows") involving these weapons of mass destruction, but one is particularly interesting: The Damascus Titan missile explosion in 1980. For about 10 hours in 1980, the United States faced a nuclear threat of its own making after an airman performing maintenance on a Titan II missile dropped a 9-pound socket 70 feet, ripping a hole in a fuel tank and leading to an explosion that propelled a 9-megaton warhead out of the ground. Eric Schlosser's Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety is an excellent book no matter what, that people on this sub would enjoy. Sept. 19, 1980: A Titan 2 missile exploded in its silo near Damascus, Ark., after a workman dropped a wrench and punctured its fuel tank. In this case, it almost wiped an entire state off the map. The film, based on the best selling book by Eric Schlosser, tells the story of a September 18, 1980, explosion at a Titan II nuclear-missile site in Damascus, Arkansas. I'm betting the 1980 Damascus Titan Missile explosion. Podcast November 14, 2018 cold war, US history 00:00 37:20 The Damascus Titan missile explosion (also known as the Damascus accident [1]) was a 1980 U.S. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. Ken Grunewald, who served on Titan II launch crews during his career in the Air Force, speaks about the 1980 disaster at Damascus. 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 had a liquid fuel explosion inside . Most locals remember hearing about the 1980 Titan II missile explosion in Damascus, Arkansas that killed one man and caused a 9 megaton nuclear warhead to pop out and land on the side of highway 65. The most serious nuclear threat in the history of the U.S. came not from the Soviets, but from a single nine-pound wrench socket. When the socket fell, it plunged 70 feet to pierce the side of the . LITTLE ROCK, Ark. A third Titan II missile accident happened on Sept. 19, 1980, in Damascus in Van Buren County. The scary thing is that the Titan II explosion "was a normal accident, set in motion by a trivial event," in this case a dropped . Based the Pulitzer Prize-finalist book of the same name from journalist Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), the film takes viewers through a minute-by-minute account of the Damascus Titan missile explosion, an incident in Arkansas in 1980 that almost blew the Eastern Seaboard of the United States off the map. 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 . The silo hole, after the 1980 Damascus, AR explosion Courtesy of Greg Devlin. He mentioned the nuclear missiles around the country on the podcast. 40 Years Ago, We Almost Blew Up Arkansas. For about 10 hours in 1980, the United States faced a nuclear threat of its own making after an airman performing maintenance on a Titan II missile dropped a 9-pound socket 70 feet, ripping a hole in a fuel tank and leading to an explosion that propelled a 9-megaton warhead out of the ground. The Damascus Titan missile explosion (also known as the Damascus accident) was a 1980 U.S. The Titan II missile that suffered a fuel leak in Damascus, it was an old missile that really should have been retired by 1980. At 3:01 AM on Friday, Sept. 19th in the middle of parched farmland about four miles north of Damascus a U.S. Air Force Titan II missile exploded, killing Air Force Sergeant David Livingston and . Explore Audible Audible Plus Gifts Help center About Audible No results Thankfully, safety features prevented radioactive spillage or detonation, but the explosion killed one and injured 21 others. Command and Control is the long-hidden story of a deadly 1980 accident at a Titan II missile complex in Damascus, Arkansas. Of course there are no more Titan II sites active (the one near Davis-Monthan is a tourist attraction now, and the bird was never fueled). TIL In 1980, a Titan 2 missile equipped with a nuclear warhead exploded in Damascus, Arkansas when a maintenance worker accidentally dropped a wrench socket into a shaft and pierced the missile, releasing explosive fuel. What to Watch Latest Trailers IMDb Originals IMDb Picks IMDb Podcasts. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. Film Description. Photo by Arkansas Democrat-Gazette A map showing Titan II. Cutting between a minute-by-minute breakdown of a notorious 1980 accident involving a Titan II nuclear missile in rural Arkansas and a deep, contextual history of the U.S. nuclear weapons program, Houston, we have a very expensive problem The inspection of historical American tragedies continues with this nail-biter about the 1980 Damascus Titan missile explosion in Arkansas. On Sept. 18, 1980, at 6:35 p.m., two airmen conducting maintenance on a Titan-II missile siloed in Damascus, Ark., dropped a ratchet socket that pierced the skin of one of the eight-story missiles . Launch Complex 374-7 was a Titan missile launch silo. A young airman was doing routine maintenance at an Arkansas ICBM site. (1980) On September 18, 1980, two Air Force mechanics entered the Titan II missile silo in Damascus, Arkansas, to conduct routine maintenance. Broken Arrow incident involving a Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). A new documentary based on Schlosser's book, also called "Command and Control" (opening Wednesday in New York City), explores in white-knuckle detail one such incident, at a Titan II missile silo. September 19 - The Robert Redford-directed film Ordinary People, based on the novel by Judith Guest, premieres. The new documentary Command and Control relates the both fascinating and utterly chilling chain of events surrounding the near-catastrophic explosion of a Titan-II nuclear missile in Damascus . By Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984, March 25 . For about 10 hours in 1980, the United States faced a nuclear threat of its own making after an airman performing maintenance on a Titan II missile dropped a 9-pound socket 70 feet, ripping a hole in a fuel tank and leading to an explosion that propelled a 9-megaton warhead out of the ground. He was a 19-year-old missile technician, a new trainee, riding with another guy, David Powell, who was showing Plumb the ropes. One man was killed and at least 21 were injured. For about 10 hours in 1980, the United States faced a nuclear threat of its own making after an airman performing maintenance on a Titan II missile dropped a 9-pound socket 70 feet, ripping a hole in a fuel tank and leading to an explosion that propelled a 9-megaton warhead out of the ground. The incident occurred on September 18-19, 1980, at Missile Complex 374-7 in rural Arkansas when a U.S. Air Force LGM-25C Jason Newman. Their movie focuses on a little-remembered Sept. 19, 1980 explosion of one of the Air Force's Titan II missiles in Damascus, Ark.an aging and nearly obsolete two-decade-old technology that . Washington. . On the night of September 18, 1980, a Titan II missile carrying a thermonuclear warhead exploded in rural Arkansas. Learn the long-hidden story of a deadly 1980 accident at a Titan II missile complex in Damascus, Arkansas.The long-hidden story, Command and Control, airing Saturday, August 10 at 4 p.m. on WXXI-TV, September 18-19 - 1980 Damascus Titan missile explosion: Liquid fuel in an LGM-25C Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile explodes at a missile launch facility north of Damascus, Arkansas.