53 Die In Missile Silo Explosion

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30827, 12 August 1965, Page 13

53 Die In Missile Silo Explosion

Air Force experts are probing the cause of a fire and explosion in the Titan II missile silo which killed 53 civilian workmen on Monday.

IN Z PA -Reuter — Copyright>

SEARCY (Arkansas), August 11.

President Johnson has ordered a fullscale investigation and the Air Force Secretary, Mr Eugene Zuckert. was due at Little Rock air base, near Searcy, today. The dead men, all civilian workers, had been trapped in the underground silo and apparently were asphyxiated when the fire and explosion sealed off their escape and filled the 155-foot-deep missile launching tube with smoke.

Apart from two men who! managed to scramble to ; safety when the fire broke out, there were no further survivors. Worst Yet I It was the worst tragedy, in the history of America’s I missile arsenal. As members of a 30-man investigation team set to work, a public information officer. Captain Douglas Wood, said: “We cannot make any supposition whatsoever as to the cause of the explosion or fire

>! —These things are not sup- > I posed to happen.” ;| Air Force rescue teams had •Ito wear asbestos suits to rei cover the bodies from the 'launching tube. 1 The 108-foot. 150-ton missile, .[laden with liquid fuel, did not J burn, and there was no dan’,ger of a nuclear explosion, since the rocket's warhead • had been removed. Captain ■ Wood said. The workmen had been modifying the massive under- • ground complex when the fire ■ and explosions filled the silo ■ with flame and smoke.