Command and Control

In Violation

Jeff Kennedy had just gotten home from playing racquetball when the phone rang. It was about seven in the evening, and he was getting ready for dinner with his wife and their two small children. The call was from job control.

There’s a problem out at 4–7, the dispatcher said. The Klaxons are going off, and a white cloud is rising from the exhaust vents. We think there’s a fire in the silo.

Kennedy had dealt with fuel leaks, oxidizer leaks, and all sorts of mechanical breakdowns — but he’d never seen a fire at a Titan II complex.

Report immediately to the command post, job control said. We’re going to chopper you out to the complex.

Things must be pretty bad, Kennedy thought. He’d been in the Air Force for years, and this was the first time somebody had offered him a ride in a helicopter. He knew Charles Heineman, the PTS team chief working at 4–7 that day. Heineman was good, Heineman could tell the difference between fuel, smoke, and oxidizer. Maybe there was a fire in the silo. That would be incredible.

Kennedy put on his uniform, said good-bye to his family, and headed for the command post. He was a quality control evaluator for the 308th Missile Inspection and Maintenance Squadron. More important than his official title was a fact widely acknowledged in the 308th. Kennedy was the best missile mechanic at the base. He understood the Titan II propulsion system better than just about anyone else. He knew how to fix it. And he seemed to embody the swagger and the spirit of the PTS crews. Kennedy was tough, outspoken, and fearless. He was six foot five and powerfully built, a leader among the enlisted men who risked their lives every day in the silos. Commanding officers didn’t always like him. But they listened to him.

At Little Rock Air Force Base, Kennedy was briefed by Colonel John T. Moser, the wing commander, and Colonel James L. Morris, the head of the maintenance squadron. A large socket had been dropped in the silo, piercing the missile and causing a leak in the stage 1 fuel tank. The sprays were on, flooding the silo with water. The missile combat crew was trying to make sense of all the hazard lights flashing in the control center. The deputy commander, Al Childers, thought it was just a fuel leak. The missile systems analyst technician, Rodney Holder, thought there was a fire. The PTS team topside had reported seeing smoke — but then hurriedly left the scene and couldn’t be reached. Nobody knew where they were. Pressure in the stage 1 fuel tank was falling. Pressure in the stage 1 oxidizer tank was rising. One was threatening to collapse, the other to burst.

Kennedy was surprised to hear how quickly the pressure levels had changed in the hour or so since the socket was dropped. The stage 1 fuel tank was now at 2.2 psi, about one fifth of what it should be; the stage 1 oxidizer was at 18.8 psi, almost twice as high as it should be. He’d never seen pressure levels change that fast.

Colonel Morris was preparing to leave for 4–7 by helicopter and wanted Kennedy to join him. The two men weren’t particularly fond of each other. Morris was an officer in his midforties, cautious and by the book, just the sort of person that the PTS guys liked to ignore. He needed to know what was happening at the launch complex and thought Kennedy was the right man to find out. The Missile Potential Hazard Team had tentatively come up with a plan of action: enter the silo, determine the size of the hole in the missile, vent the fuel vapors, and try to stabilize the stage 1 fuel tank so that it wouldn’t collapse. Of course, none of that would be possible if the silo was on fire. Was there smoke drifting from the exhaust vents, fuel vapor, or both? That was the critical question. Morris and Kennedy left the command post, went to the flight line, climbed into a chopper, and took off.

Kennedy had never been in an Air Force helicopter. His job focused largely on machinery that was underground — and like most of the PTS guys, his career in missile maintenance had come as a surprise, not as the fulfillment of a lifelong ambition. Kennedy was born and raised in South Portland, Maine. He played basketball in high school, graduated, got married, and worked as a deckhand on the Casco Bay Lines, a ferry service that linked Portland to neighboring islands. In 1976 he decided that being a deckhand just didn’t cut it anymore. He had a one-year-old daughter and another child on the way. He needed to earn more money, and his brother suggested joining the military. Kennedy met with recruiters from the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marines. He chose the Air Force because its basic training was the shortest.