
Titan II Missile Explosion in Arkansas – 40 Year Anniversary - seigando
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a34061418/titan-ii-missile-explosion-damascus-arkansas-40-year-anniversary/
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ananonymoususer
Arkansas was never in danger. I heard stories about this incident from a
missileer I worked with. The issue was that as the fuel leaked out of the
tank, the structure of the missile was no longer able to support its own
weight. The nuke was not "armed" and had lots of fail-safe devices to ensure
it would never go off. The commander was severely reprimanded for sending in
the two poor (unqualified) souls who perished.

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daltonlp
> The nuke was not "armed" and had lots of fail-safe devices to ensure it
> would never go off.

Whew!

Though in fairness, the rocket wasn't supposed to explode in the silo either.

A good book about the incident is Command and Control, by Eric Schlosser:

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6452798-command-and-
cont...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6452798-command-and-control)

