Oxidizer SNAFU - Titan II ICBM

[@3DGuy0813]

533 SMS ACP MFT here, this is a bit confusing. It sounds like two different incidences are mixed together. The incident that took place at Little Rock, Arkansas was the result of a tool being dropped, bouncing off the shock mount, and punching a hole in the missile's fuel tank spilling UDMH Hydrazine. That is the incident that ended in an explosion that blew the silo closure door clean off the silo. Now another incident took place several years earlier at complex 533-07 outside of Wichita, Kansas. In that incident, the oxidizer valve was stuck open during a PTS operation and it filled the silo and equipment are with Nitrogen Tetra-oxide. That incident was in Rock, Kansas and a sortie in my squadron. I believe this is the incident that is depicted in this video. Witnesses who visited the 533-07 in the aftermath of the incident, reported that the corrosion from the oxidizer was so intense that the site's concrete walls were disintegrating. They said you could literally poke your finger into the concrete and make a hole. In 1977, shortly after the incident, site 533-07 in Rock, Kansas was sealed and never used again.

[@ThompsonAtomicRanch]

The incident being outlined in this video took place in Kansas. The Damascus incident resulted from the fuel and oxidizer mixing while this one was "just" an oxidizer leak.

[@sparc77]

That was my thought too. BMAT 533 SMS

[@sparc77]

The opening clip appears to be in slow motion. The Titan II came out of the launch duct much faster than that.

[@grantottaviano7445]

Awesome to catch a video from you guys! Hope all is well, would love to meet someday and possibly see your silo.

[@jamesharrison2570]

I was in the Titan II Program. I spent over 7years underground in the complexes. I now have leukemia

[@nicksmacro]

I've been to the T2 museum in Tuscon, My wife turned the key and ended the world. I knew about how seriously f-ed up hydrazine was before that. On the scale of nasty stuff, they had to create a new scale...

[@ThompsonAtomicRanch]

I love going to the Titan Missile Museum! Such a neat place :)

[@garyjones2582]

Interesting, thx for sharing... I hope you do many more videos this year...

[@mexicoshanty]

"Learn from this mishap and prevent it from happening again". Thank you. I will be much more careful with the oxidizer in my Titan II missiles from now on. Any other gotta's I should know?

[@ThompsonAtomicRanch]

Haha! It was an old video from the early 80s for the airmen working in these facilities before they were decommissioned.

[@christopherleubner6633]

I live very close to another silo that had an accident. Someone stopped a wrench and it punctured the skin and it ruptured the UDMH tank then the vapor ignited blowing up the silo and chucking a 9Mt warhead 300 feet outside the silo nest gate.😮😮😮

[@mikep9032]

Where did you find this video?? It's fantastic. May we copy to other Facebook pages??

[@tl1024]

Where did this occur? I hadnt heard about this failure & unfortunate loss of life. That fuel & oxidizer is very bad stuff. The amount of patches on the suits is "sketchy", and alludes to the danger of the materials being handled.

[@eduardowatkinz]

Note: This video took place in Kansas; however, the following from Wikipedia was much more devastating: "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). 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 inside its silo. The incident began with a fuel leak at 6:30 p.m. on September 18, and culminated with the explosion at around 3:00 a.m. on September 19, ejecting the warhead from its silo. The warhead landed a short distance away and no radioactive material was lost." Link to just one of the many videos: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qZ60p4WVi6lqr9k

[@ThompsonAtomicRanch]

@@eduardowatkinz The incident that is outlined in this video is actually different than what took place at Damascus. This one took place at a Kansas Titan II complex and only involved an oxidizer leak. Here is a good link with a brief description of what happened.... www.themilitarystandard.com/missile/titan2/accident_533-7_1978.php

[@edsmith5448]

What do you know of the suits, have you work on them or been in the silo in one?

[@tl1024]

@@edsmith5448 I've been to the museum, and visited a couple sites around the area.

[@tl1024]

@@ThompsonAtomicRanch thanks for the follow-up, I had not heard of this story before.

[@rexmasters1541]

You should watch the legit video's on these two different accidents. This channel is shite for sure.

[@ThompsonAtomicRanch]

This channel is "shite"? What are you talking about Mr Rex?