Command and Control by Eric Schlosser Read Free Book Online Page B

and within visual range of each other in the control center. You couldn’t allow the other person out of your sight. The same rule applied in the silo, whenever the missile had a warhead. At entrances to the control center and the silo, a warning stenciled in bold red letters said: “NO LONE ZONE, SAC TWO MAN POLICY MANDATORY.”
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    T HE COMMANDER AND the deputy commander at every Titan II site were issued .38 caliber revolvers, in case an intruder penetrated the underground complex or a crew member disobeyed orders. Transferring the weapons was part of the turnover checklist, when a new crew arrived for duty. In addition to the handguns and their holsters, Mazzaro and Childers received some bad news from the crew preparing to leave 4-7. Pressure in the stage 2 oxidizer tank was low. A PTS team would have to visit the site, and most of the day would have to be devoted to major maintenance.Before the other crew departed, Mazzaro and Childers opened the safe, made sure the cookies and launch keys were inside, shut it, and installed their own locks.
    For the next hour or so Mazzaro, Childers, Holder, and Fuller went through the daily shift verification (DSV) checklist in the control center. They checked every piece of equipment on all three levels of the center, every gauge, switch, and warning light. Level 3 was the basement. It housed the DC power supplies and battery backups, switching equipment for the communications systems, the air-conditioning and ventilation systems. Fresh air was pulled into the control center from outdoors, filtered, cooled, and then sent throughout the rest of the complex. The positive air flow helped to protect the crew from toxic vapors that might drift from the silo. The go-to-war safe, the tall steel cabinets, and the launch consoles were on level 2. The top floor, level 1, had a kitchen, a small round table, four chairs, a toilet, and four beds. The complex had enough food to last for a month, but its emergency diesel generator had enough fuel for only two weeks. During wartime, the crew might find itself eating canned and dehydrated military rations in the dark.
    PTS Team A was scheduled to pressurize the stage 2 oxidizer tank at the complex. The eight-man team was led by Senior Airman Charles T. Heineman, who would direct its work from the control center. Airmen David W. Aderhold, Eric Ayala, and Richard D. Willinghurst would remain topside to operate the nitrogen tank. Aderhold and Ayala would be in RFHCO suits. Airmen Roger A. Hamm and Gregory W. Lester would stay in the blast lock as backup to the men working in the silo, ready to put on their RFHCOs in an emergency. And Airmen David Powell and Jeffrey Plumb would enter the silo in RFHCOs, remove the pressure cap, and attach the nitrogen line.
    Powell and Plumb hoped to get started on the missile early in the afternoon. But the work platforms wouldn’t descend from the silo walls. They were stuck in the upright position. A repair crew was working on them. Something was wrong with the hydraulics system, and troubleshooting with help from the tech manuals couldn’t fix it. The hassles continued to mount. The hydropneumatic accumulator was broken, and without it theplatforms couldn’t be lowered—and the repair crew didn’t have the right parts. If pressure in the stage 2 oxidizer tank dropped any further, the missile would have to be taken off alert. SAC headquarters was never pleased when a missile went off alert. And so a helicopter was sent from Little Rock Air Force Base with the parts.
    Meanwhile, Rodney Holder and Ron Fuller continued to go through the daily shift verification checklist, walking down the long corridor to the silo. The cableway was essentially a big steel pipe, braced with girders and springs, that stretched almost fifty yards from the blast lock to the silo. The floor was painted gray, the walls and ceilings turquoise. Bundles of pipes and cables