Fatal Blaze: The Apollo I Disaster

Kiersten Dane Olivas

PUBMAT | Anthony Beronque

DID YOU KNOW?

On January 27, 1967, one of the worst tragedies in spaceflight history occurred where three (3) astronauts aboard in Apollo I died as they were practicing for a two-week mission in space.

Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were part of the first crewed Apollo flight. It is an Earth-orbiting mission scheduled to be launched on February 21, 1967. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), they were taking part in a "plugs-out" test, in which the Command Module was mounted on the Saturn 1B on the launch pad just as it would be for the actual launch, but the Saturn 1B was not fueled. They planned to go through the entire countdown sequence.

A series of minor problems had already occurred before the test began — communication being the major one. In a recording, Grissom can be heard saying, "How are we going to get to the Moon if we can't talk between three buildings?". A minute has passed and a surge was recorded, indicating a possible short circuit. Seconds later, a scream that sounds like, “Flames!” was heard.

Two seconds after that, White was heard saying, "We've got a fire in the cockpit." The fire spread throughout the cabin in a matter of seconds. Chaffee then said, "We have a bad fire!", followed by screams and shouting. The last crew communication ended 17 seconds after the first indication of the start of the fire, followed by the loss of all signals.

However, the Apollo hatch could only open inward and was held closed by a number of latches that had to be operated by ratchets. The interior pressure of the hatch was also much higher than outside atmospheric pressure, which made the rescue more difficult. By the time they succeeded in getting the hatch open, roughly 5 minutes after the fire had started, the astronauts had already perished, possibly within the first 30 seconds due to smoke inhalation and burns.

The Apollo program was then put on hold while an exhaustive investigation was made of the accident. Several changes were instigated before the first Saturn V launched in November of 1967 via Apollo 4. The mission, originally called Apollo 204 but commonly referred to as Apollo 1, was officially assigned the name "Apollo 1" in honor of Grissom, White, and Chaffee.

Reference/s:

https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo1info.html