Titan II: The Road To Damascus

"Anytime you have liquid fuel, it becomes a problem, and it ages the system," said retired Air Force Col. Jimmy Gray. "We began to have leaks, corrosion, this sort of thing. After a point, it was expensive to get the seals we needed."

Gray came to the 308th Missile Wing in Arkansas to assist with maintenance. "I was really more afraid of the liquid fuel than the weapon."

Another problem he noticed, the Air Force was having difficulty finding crews willing to work on the missile bases because of the volatility of the toxic fuels.

"They were waiving a lot of requirements trying to get people into this career field because it was very dangerous because they provided no hazardous duty pay," he said.

On Sept. 18, 1980, one of those crews was performing maintenance on the missile silo near Damascus when a repairman dropped an eight-pound socket from one of the silo's top levels. The socket fell more than 70 feet and ricocheted off the missile, puncturing a fuel tank.

"It was quite an intense night that night," retired Air Force Maj. Vince Maes said.

Maes, missile combat crew commander for the 308th, was in class at Little Rock Air Force Base at the time of the accident.

"It must have been around 7 p.m. and the air police came to the classroom and asked that I report to the Wing Command Post," he said.

At the same time, Air Force personnel rushed to Damascus to try to repair the leak. One of them, Gray and his maintenance team.

"As we got closer, we began running into roadblocks," he said "Police were already trying to divert people around the site and keeping them away."

Damascus Mayor L.B. Pavatt was a teacher at Southside School during the crisis and remembers the difficulty getting into town.

"They told us to evacuate the town. Go as far as Conway," he said.

As the town evacuated, Gray and his men were trying to pass through the media stationed at the gate.

"My men were trying to in and make some attempt at recovery. They were getting contaminated with fuel and oxidizer. They were very toxic.

"I was spraying it off the men and had no protective clothing," he added. "I went to get a face shield, gloves and an apron. And as I turned around and made my way back to the access, there was a huge explosion. In fact, there were two explosions."

The blast injured 21 but amazingly killed only one, Sr. Airman David Livingston.

The silo's 750-ton launch door was catapulted hundreds of feet from the site. Just as terrifying, the 9.5 megaton nuclear warhead was nowhere to be found.

"When the door lifted up, the stage-two missile with the warhead on it, bounced off the underneath of the door," Col. Gray said. "It ricocheted off and bounced into a ditch on the side of the road.

"The media had no idea what that was in the ditch, so we covered it with a tent and said it was equipment," he added

Scientists from the atomic energy commission spent the next three days examining the warhead before moving it to Little Rock Air Force Base, and questions of responsibility soon followed.

"It shouldn't have happened," Col. Gray said. "There were a lot of people to blame, myself included."

A total loss, repairs to the 4-7 silo were estimated in the billions. As an alternative, the military deactivated it, marking the first Titan II site taken off-line.

For its heroic efforts, the 308th Missile Wing at Little Rock Air Force Base received high honors for bravery and humanitarian acts during the Damascus Incident.

Of all 54 Titan II deactivated by 1987, the last was in Judsonia. The missile tip is on display at Little Rock Air Force Base.