That was the hypergolic, liquid propellant from the missile that mixed and detonated. A heavy socket fell off a worker’s platform during maintenance, puncturing the side of the rocket as it fell down the silo. Vapors mixed when structural failures occurred, and the rest is history.
Tripler
Here’s the Wiki for those that don’t have access to the book.
“Which Boy Scout troop did you say you were with again, young man?”
“Uhhh, troop vun-syeven-syeven. Da, dat is de vun.”
“You’re very tall for such a young man.”
“Uhhh, I drink much Coca Cola and oppress vurking classes like all real American. Help me grow big and strong.”
For reasons which should be clear, a basic safety ideal for nuclear weapons is that there should be no… yield should the warhead accidentally have explosions set off next to it, be dropped out of an aircraft, etc. You know, stuff that actually happens. So it’s not purely luck.
I’m not going into details, but this has been, and still is correct.
Tripler
Safety around, and with, nukes is still paramount.
Tangentially: this is what irritates me when people talk about banning “military style weapons”. What, you want to ban “weapons that can’t go off by accident”?
I laugh sometimes in meetings at work, especially when someone talks about “tactical nuclear weapons.” There is nothing “tactical” about anything in a kiloton range.
Tripler
Megatons? A little too “strategic.”
The paradoxical thing defining nuclear weapons is: they absolutely must work as designed (including safety) and you must credibly be able to use them, but you can never, ever actually use them (some commanders will disagree with that assessment, but they are nuts).
Ultima ratio regum indeed
What you said. Two (of three) words guide 99% of my day-to-day work: “Safety” and “Dependability.”
Tripler
Some of the history of the inventory is fascinating–even though I have to focus on current stuff.
The aforementioned Command and Control is a great book. You learn a lot of things that are surprising.
Like, how in the constant battle between making sure a weapon doesn’t go off when you don’t want it to (like an airplane that catches on fire on the ramp, or a rocket explsion in the silo) and making sure it does go off when you want it to (like over Moscow), there was a time where the safties were probably TOO safe. Like the weapons might not have gone off if WWIII started! They only found out later, after they’d been in service for a while.
What if they gave a nuclear war and no one came? All our bombs just dropped harmlessly on the ground? Might have been embarrassing!
And best not talk about the one that fell out of a plane - armed! - over the continental US!
Heh, there are several examples of “Broken Arrow” events. As far as ‘the one’ where a weapon inadvertently seperated from an aircraft, there are several on record (<- click each word for just one example). The “armed” one, is the Goldsboro ‘drop’ where:
“. . . the bomb-disposal expert responsible for disarming the device, stated that the arm/safe switch was still in the safe position, although it had completed the rest of the arming sequence.”
Command and Control is a good book, and I read it before I joined my current organization. It’s more of a historical look at things, but still a really good read.
Tripler
I realize I’m dancing around a few topics–you understand that I’d like to remain with my current organization, and avoid an “attire of orange.”
I served on an SSBN (nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine) some decades ago.
It was deployed overseas, based out of Holy Loch, Scotland. One interesting thing that I was told on my first day onboard was that the ensuring the safety of the nuclear weapons that were presumed to be onboard (since it was Navy policy never to confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons) was more important than the safety of the crew.
In other words, if the ship was boarded by a hostile force while in port, they would not hesitate to take back the ship and secure the nuclear weapons regardless of hostages or collateral damage.
Some years later I was on a Navy base in King’s Bay, Georgia where SSBNs are based here on the east coast of the U.S. Not to get into any details, but the security was extremely tight.
With respect to the OP’s story, it doesn’t ring true for me, either. In the Navy, checklists are not skipped, ever. And anybody pulling a gun on another service member would find themselves court-martialed and discharged.
I’ve been to “the other one” twice, but still have yet to go to King’s Bay.
The first trip was the first time I took a boat on a business trip!
Tripler
No, not that kind of boat. I later saw those boats though.
It doesn’t make sense from my lifelong civilian perspective either. What is the point of the story supposed to be? Nuclear weapon work is so intense that mistakes are penalized by summary execution? Not following the procedure was a sign the person was an imposter?
I think the story probably originated with the person being rightfully chewed out for not doing his job properly, that got escalated into a story where violence was offered in return, and that puts the one neglecting his duties into the positive light.
In my Army training courses a thousand years ago, I always let out a loud chuckle when I heard the phrase “friendly nuclear strike”. A nuclear strike is about the least friendly thing I can think of.
Nobody else shared my sense of humor.
I feel it necessary to comment that a poster named DPRK is posting in a nuclear weapons thread. Guess those talks with Trump didn’t go as well as he touted? 
There was some cheezy '80s movie, that I recall seeing years ago (and I don’t recall the name), where two Air Force Missileers were properly ordered to launch. . . one hesitated, and the second other drew his revolver ordering the other to ‘turn keys’. The second fired his weapon, and the screen went blank, presumably indicating the first ‘non-consent’ officer was shot and killed.
I don’t remember what the movie was, but knowing what I know now, it’s a dumb scene. Current LCCs have their key consoles spaced a dozen feet apart, with key “ingnitions” spaced a human ‘wingspan’ apart 1 so that no one lone person can vote to launch. The movie scene was dumb, because by killing the other Missileer, the one essentially guaranteed that no vote (whether properly authorized or not) was going to happen.
Does anyone else remember that scene?
1 Again, I’m remotely familiar with Minutemen systems; the scene could have been from an Atlas Command center, rendering my entire story moo.
It’s a moo point. 'Cause if the cow gets nuked, the cow don’t care.
Tripler
Why yes, I’m bingewatching a popular '90s sitcom, why do you ask?
I have a vague memory of that scene too which may be from a different movie entirely. I remember one guy hesitating to make the other guy do his bit but I don’t remember the screen going black. I think it ended up that the whole thing was a drill. The two guys didn’t know it was a drill though. It was to see what percentage of missals would be launched in a real deal.
The opening scene of WarGames is my guess: War Games - Opening scene - "Turn your KEY, SIR!" - YouTube
“Turn Your Key, SIR!!!” With a young Michael Madsen, and the guy who ended up playing the Chief of Staff on, "The West Wing.
Hilarious, listening to two guys under PRP, talking about smoking weed. I thought that was a big no-no for SAC of the early 80’s, and enforced by lots of piss tests?