Do you remember 374-7?

[kmorrow]

I remember this very well. I was assigned to the Crew Chief section when I arrived at LRAFB in 8/78 to complex 373-9. Was at this facility for almost 2 yrs. and reassigned to complex 374-6. Another Crew Chief that was assigned 374-7 left for another assignment and I was assigned as temporary Crew Chief for both sites. Leading up to the day of the accident, I believe there had been a fuel and oxidizer offload. I don't remember if it was for a missile service yo-yo, where the old missile was removed for service and the spare that had just completed servicing was installed and refueled, or for some other reason. But the PTS team had gone out to repressurise the tank after the nitrogen bleed off. I had been dispatched to 4-6 that day to assist a maintenance team there. While there, I was called to go to 4-7 to clean up a hydraulic spill that the Combat Crew had found earlier in the day. The PTS crew could not do there job due to the hydraulic fluid. I went to 4-7 that afternoon and went to the spill the Combat Crew had found and started cleaning up and discovered a fairly significant leak. It was the system that controlled the lower and raising of the silo platforms. Reported it to Job Control and they dispatched a team from the Pneumatics shop for repairs. This caused a considerable delay for the PTS team. I returned to base, debriefed, and went home. I don't remember why, but I never turned on the TV that night. At around 5AM the next morning, I received a phone call from a good friend (another Crew Chief) telling me I needed to get up and turn on the TV. This was a turning point in my career. I was trying to decide if I was staying in the missile system or crosstrain. I did crosstrain into telephone switching electronics.

[rseagle]

I started this thread and forgot about these 4 years. I never added my involvement with 4-7. I was the DMCCC on the 4-7's senior crew (R-126). The crew was Capt. Beaman Bryson, Lt. Robert Eagle (me), SSGT Mark Crane (BMAT) and A1C Chuck Erwin (MFT). We had performed PTS all summer. The missile wasn't changed out, just propellant transfer for gasket replacement. I had the opportunity to chat with Livingston and Kennedy all summer. They would shed their RFHCOs and sit around the control center in their "Long Johns" to watch TV or "Shoot the Shit". I remember that Dave was engaged.
Well, after the PTS operations were complete bt mid-September, our crew was scheduled for leave. I flew home to Orlando for 2 weeks of fun in the sun. Four days later, Maj. Ron Shertzer, my Sector Commander called. My mother took the call, as I was out. When I got home, she was white as a ghost. She said come here to the TV. It was on the news. She told me to call the squadron back. Fortunately I didn't have to report back until my scheduled time.
When I got back at the end of September, they needed me to do something until they worked my crew into the monthly schedule. So I was encouraged to volunteer to go out to the site to clean-up and try to open Blast Door 9. When I approached the access portal I saw Livingston's white RFHCO helmet lying on the ground. There was a big hole in the back of it, the size of a human head. The helmet fibers around the hole were shredded and bent outward. I figured the blast concussion blew the helmet off his head that way. Without the helmet, Dave surely inhaled the propellant fumes that ultimatley killed him.
We enter the access portal, entered Blast Doors 6,7 and 8 that had been jacked open and entered the Control Center. The Classified and Crypto had been removed. It was quite. I remember seeing Capt. Mike Mazzaro's glass of soda on the left side of the LCCFC. It had some mold in it by now.
We went to Blast Door 9 to open it and hopefully enter the decontamination area and long cable way. First, we pumped the Blast Valve slightly so we could insert the PVD probe into it. I was scared. We had our Chemox with us, but you know how nervous you got when you had to don those during a check. But this was for real! I hoped that I didn't have to use it. I was ready to run! Fortunately there was no alarms for either the fuel (UDMH) or oxidizer (NiO3) sides. We then pumped the pins open on #9, and tried to push it open. It didn't budge. Apparently, all the equipment in the long cable way got splattered against the back of the door. It was never opened.
We then went topside and started picking up pieces of the missile for the investigation. We were warned not to slip anything into our pockets. That's about all I remember of the 4-7 aftermath.

Our crew was reassigned to 4-4. I did my 4 year tour and separated from the USAF to go to Grad School.

[njh621]

I have a slide of that famous LCCFC (with glass of Coke) shot. The fact that not a drop spilled is a true testament to the shock-isolation of the complex.



Aerial view post-explosion

[SgtGary]

374-7 was my home site from 1967-1970. I remember warning the crew chief that removing the lanyards from the toolkit was a bad idea. The Titan skin was very thin and Crecent wrenches were heavy and had sharp protrusions. I heard that it was a socket wrench that punctured the oxidizer tank. Bad luck there, had it been the fuel tank there probably wouldn't have been an explosion. The humidity was enough the convert the nitrogen tetroxide into fuming nitric acid which did a number on the thin skin of the fuel tank it sat on top of.

It was a bad day for the site, but I also worked relief in the site that burned in 1965 killing 53 people. There were some who refused to work 373-4 because they thought it was haunted. It did have a morning mist that was waist high. The gravel would settle after you walked across it and sounded a bit like someone was following you across the compound to the entrance. They never got the soot off the walls in most of the silo or the long passage from the blast door to the silo.

During an evaluation in the simulator two years later they threw a "fire in the diesel engine area" at the crew that was on duty. The commander almost lost it. I don't think he ever fully recovered.

[njh621]

Welcome aboard! It was a wrench socket that punctured the missile, but it hit the fuel tank, not the oxidizer tank. They were supposed to use a different type of wrench (other than the one stored in the cableway), but they left it topside and, since they were in RFHCO suits, just used what they had. The rest is, unfortunately, history.

About 3-4: I've heard some similar stories about it being haunted. It was nicknamed "Ghost Site", and one SAT troop mentioned that they had problems with the RTMN on the complex, something to do with eerie static. The event must have been traumatic for the entire crew, the commander especially. I'm not sure if the accident led to to this, but there was a modification done later on that allowed for emergency silo closure opening. Two covered switches were added to TC-21, MFT and BMAT activate the switches, door slides open. Closing the door involves use of the door control panel on level one of the silo.

[silo warrior]

Was on alert at 571-6 the night of the accident at 4-7. I have a question we were told that the first explosion occured in the silo equipment area. Then the second explosion took place in the launch duct which took off the silo door. Then we were told that the bird exploded. If this was the case did the bird actually come up out of the hole? Also did the prevalves open and actually fire the stage one engine prior to the explosion ? Never did here how far the investigation went . Did crews ever go down into the launch duct and recover any debris or was everything left in the hole?

Silo Warrior

[D Preidis]

Was on alert at 571-6 the night of the accident at 4-7. I have a question we were told that the first explosion occured in the silo equipment area. Then the second explosion took place in the launch duct which took off the silo door. Then we were told that the bird exploded. If this was the case did the bird actually come up out of the hole? Also did the prevalves open and actually fire the stage one engine prior to the explosion ? Never did here how far the investigation went . Did crews ever go down into the launch duct and recover any debris or was everything left in the hole?

Silo Warrior

With the design of the system and the physics of an explosion I doubt the prevalves ever opened and certainly the missile did not come out of the hole at all except in pieces.

The prevalves were in the engine assemblies and the tanks were the missile body well above them. The force of the tanks exploding would disassemble the engine assemblies and push them down. Since blast waves follow lines of least resistence, like water and electricity, they would push the engines down and, in a manner, envelope them. What little fuel and oxydizer was in the lines above the prevalves would be left to burn as it came out of the lines rather than making enough pressure, of the correct vector, to open the prevalves.

[njh621]

The ignition sequence you mentioned is what is theorized happened. Something (presumably EF-105 or something else in the silo) ignited the vapor, blew up Stage II, and sent the closure door and Stage II with the RV flying. The silo was too badly damaged to salvage or recover anything, so they just back filled it with gravel. I assume they placed some kind of concrete cap or rebar support over the opening so that the ground on top wouldn't sink in.

[wblakeney]

Here is the trailer for a movie called "Disaster at Silo 7"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHMh5xptMok