Hansen: A dropped socket, a lucky save, a key role for Offutt — and a scary reminder of nuke risks

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/article/20140401/NEWS/140409949/1685#hansen-a-dropped-socket-a-lucky-save-a-key-role-for-offutt-and-a-scary-reminder-of-nuke-risks

By Matthew Hansen PUBLISHED TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 2014 AT 1:00 AM / UPDATED AT 2:04 AM

The socket slipped off a wrench and slipped through the overworked missile repairman's grasp. It toppled 70 feet down a silo. It ricocheted off a gigantic piece of steel.

It gashed a hole in the side of the missile.

Fuel began to spray out of the hole “like water from a garden hose,” a terrifying sight for any repairman fixing any missile in the U.S. military arsenal.

Except this particular missile was special. This Titan II missile held a thermonuclear warhead nine times more powerful than the combined power of both atomic bombs and every other bomb dropped in World War II.

FULL story at link.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

1. I remember this story

I always wondered if the line from Dire Straits' Industial Disease referred to this incident ("...somebody threw a spanner (wrench), then they threw him in the hole...&quot .

[unblock]

3. i took it to mean deliberate sabotage, as in a labor resistance action.

[NuclearDem]

2. I never knew what went on in STRATCOM. I was with the other half of Offutt, the 55th.

I mean, I was aware that it handled the nuclear arsenal, but I never once saw the inside of that building.