In September 1980, a military incident near the small town of Damascus, Ark. brought the state and the U.S. close to a nuclear disaster. On September 18, an accident during routine maintenance at the Titan Two missile complex caused a fuel leak on the missile, which was topped by a nine-megaton nuclear warhead, which had the destructive power equivalent to nine million pounds of TNT. In the early morning hours of September 19, the missile exploded in its silo, but the warhead did not detonate.
On the evening of January 10, a new documentary chronicling the events will debut as part of PBS’s American Experience series. The film is based on the 2013 book by Eric Schlosser titled Command and Control, and it takes a look at the 1980 incident in Damascus, as well as other incidents involving America’s nuclear arsenal throughout the Cold War era. One of the Air Force personnel who was at the Damascus missile complex the night of that explosion was Greg Devlin, who at the time was a Senior Airman on Propellant Transfer System Team B based in Little Rock. He had served just more than three years in the Air Force and was just barely 21 years of age the night of the incident. Last month, we reached Devlin by phone and spoke with him about his experiences that night in 1980.
