1980 Damascus Titan missile explosion

The Damascus Titan missile explosion refers to an incident where the fuel in a nuclear armed missile exploded at a missile launch facility in Damascus, Arkansas, on September 18–19, 1980. The facility was part of the 374th Strategic Missile Squadron at the time of the explosion.

Incident
On the evening of the 18th, at about 6:30 p.m., an airman conducting maintenance on a USAF Titan-II missile at Little Rock Air Force Base's Launch Complex 374-7 in Southside (Van Buren County) just north of town, dropped a socket from a socket wrench, which fell about 80 ft before hitting and piercing the skin on the rocket's first-stage fuel tank, causing it to leak. The area was evacuated. This socket wrench was approximately 3 feet long and around 25 lbs. The socket was about 6 pounds.

At about 3:00 a.m. on September 19, 1980, the hypergolic fuel exploded. The W53 warhead landed about 100 ft from the launch complex's entry gate; its safety features operated correctly and prevented any loss of radioactive material. One Air Force airman, SrA David Livingston was killed, others seriously injured and the launch complex was destroyed. The former launch complex was decommissioned, disassembled, and now stands on private land.

Popular culture
A 1988 television movie, Disaster at Silo 7, is based on this event.

In September 2013, Eric Schlosser published Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. It focused on the explosion, as well as other Broken Arrow incidents during the Cold War. The New Yorkers Louis Menand called it "excellent" and "hair-raising" and said that "Command and Control'' is how nonfiction should be written." The book was also praised by science historian Steven Shapin in London Review of Books. It was a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for History.