The US intercontinental missile exploded in situ, and hundreds of people were buried in the sea of fire because a wrench fell

The United States once boasted that only Soviet missiles would explode on its own soil. However, it is unexpected that similar safety accidents have also been staged in the United States. At noon on September 18, 1980, at a missile launch base in Arkansas, the US military was organizing staff to conduct a missile launch exercise. Under normal circumstances, the missile exercise only needs to wait for the launch order of the superior, send the missile out of the atmosphere, and detonate in the designated area 20 minutes later. However, this day is doomed to be unusual.

Just before the launch of the intercontinental missile, the technicians suddenly found that the oxidizer tank of the missile was abnormal, and immediately sent two maintenance personnel to the missile launch shaft to deal with the problem. As a result, the maintenance personnel found that the wrench used to remove the pressure cap of the oxidizer tank was wrong, and brought the socket wrench. The two maintenance personnel thought it would be too troublesome to go back and replace the spanner, so they decided to make do with it, which would lead to a major safety accident.

It is not a big problem to use a socket wrench for maintenance, but an accident caused the wrench to fall into the bottom of the missile launching shaft, and it bounced up instantly after hitting the thrust support, directly hitting a hole in the first stage fuel tank of the missile. Then a large amount of fuel was ejected. If the fuel touched Mars, it would cause a big explosion. The sudden situation immediately caused panic, and the US military command and control room was in a mess, because the missile carried a nuclear warhead and was powerful enough to destroy a state.

In order to avoid the explosion, the U.S. military immediately began to remedy. It was found that the temperature in the launch shaft had been rising due to the fuel leakage, which made the oxidizer tank more and more inflated. Once the oxidant tank also leaks, and the fuel and oxidant are mixed together, the consequences will become more unimaginable. This is not the only thorny issue. With the fuel leakage, the internal pressure of the missile begins to drop, and the substructure may collapse at any time because it cannot bear the weight of the upper layer. The longer the delay, the greater the possibility of missile explosion. If you want to stabilize the missile, you can only open the well cover of the missile launching shaft and exhaust the gas inside.

However, things are not as simple as the US military thinks. Originally, the US military wanted to prevent the missile from exploding by releasing the gas in the launching shaft, but because of power failure and mechanical failure, the cover of the launching shaft could not be opened. In desperation, the US military had to turn on the exhaust fan, and the problem also appeared here. At this moment, the fuel concentration in the missile launching shaft has reached the peak, and the arc generated by opening the exhaust fan is likely to directly ignite the vaporized fuel.

At the moment when the exhaust fan was opened, the gas in the missile launching shaft was ignited instantaneously. With a bang, the whole launch shaft exploded violently, and the cover of the launch shaft directly bounced into the air 60 meters away. In an instant, all the communications around the missile launch shaft were interrupted, and the entire launch base was violently shaken. People in the base were killed and injured, and hundreds of people were buried in the fire. Miraculously, the violent explosion did not detonate the nuclear warhead. What is it?

It was not until the next day that the US military found that the nuclear warhead had been bombed into an open space 100 meters away. It was later discovered that the nuclear warhead and the power supply were separated during the explosion, so there was no explosion. Moreover, the hydrogen bomb is extremely stable and requires an atomic bomb to detonate. It is difficult for ordinary explosions to affect it.