Accidents

Site 6 - Frederick, Oklahoma

Thursday, May 14, 1964

Audio Tracks

The following downloadable audio files are some of the most unique items in our collection of Atlas information.   They were donated to the collection by Major Casimir Harazda.  Major Harazda was the MCCC on duty at the time of this accident.  Many years later he found an audio tape of this incident sitting in an old foot locker and had the tape transferred to compact disc.  There is some noise and background interference with some of the tracks, but the audio is legible and the approx. 45 minutes of audio gives a clear picture of the events as they unfolded at Site 6 on that day.  Much of the "narration" of what is happening is the voice of Major Ray McAllister.  Major McAllister was in charge of the PLX being done which was in preparation for General Dynamics to return control of the site to the Air Force after several updates had been applied to the site.  It was standard procedure for a "test" PLX of the site to be done after site updates had been applied.  This test would prove the site was operational and ready for the Air Force to put it back into service.  The audio tracks below show that this test did not go as planned and ended with the explosion of the Atlas missile and the destruction of the site.  The resulting explosion blew the 3-foot thick 75-ton concrete doors off of their hinges.  The broken doors can be seen in the photos above.  The Frederick site was never rebuilt after this accident and remained closed until the Atlas program was deactivated in the Spring of 1965.

We wish to express out thanks and gratitude to Major Harazda for sharing this unique piece of history!

The audio files listed below are in Windows WMA format and are available for download to your system.  To save a file to your local computer, right click the file name and choose the "Save Target As" option.  PLEASE NOTE:  Take note of the file sizes before downloading.  Some of these files are large and may take a long time to download, especially on a dial-up phone line.  A high speed Internet connection is highly recommended.  These files can be played using Windows Media Player.  You can download your free copy of Windows Media Player here.

(4 Mb)      Track 1 - Start Countdown.wma

(791 Kb)      Track 2 - Missile Pod High Temp.wma