Portal:Spaceflight/Selected article/Week 4 2008

Apollo 1 is the official name given to the never-flown Apollo/Saturn 204 (AS-204) mission. Its command module (CM-012) was heavily damaged by fire during a test and training exercise on 27 January 1967 at LC-34, Cape Canaveral (then known as Cape Kennedy) atop a Saturn IB rocket. The crew onboard were astronauts selected for the first manned Apollo mission and all three died in the accident: Command Pilot Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee. Although the ignition source of the fire was never determined their deaths were attributed to a wide range of lethal design hazards in the early Apollo command module such as its high-pressure 100% oxygen atmosphere during the test, many wiring and plumbing flaws, flammable materials in the cockpit, a hatch which might not open at all in an emergency and even the flightsuits worn by the astronauts.

AS-204 was to be the first manned flight of a command and service module (CSM) to Earth orbit, launched on a Saturn 1B. CM-012, the Apollo 1 command module, was a Block I design built for spaceflight but never intended for a trip to the moon since it lacked the needed docking equipment.

The crew members were reclining in their horizontal couches, running through a checklist when a voltage transient was recorded at 6:30:54 (23:30:54 GMT). Ten seconds later (at 6:31:04) Chaffee said, "Hey..." Scuffling sounds followed for three seconds before Grissom shouted "Fire!" Chaffee then reported, "We've got a fire in the cockpit," and White said "Fire in the cockpit!"

It took five minutes to open the hatch, a layered array of three hatches with many ratchets. By this time the fire in the command module had gone out. Although the cabin lights had remained lit, the ground crew was at first unable to find the astronauts. As the smoke cleared they found the bodies but were not able to remove them. The fire had melted the astronauts' nylon space suits along with some of the air lines connecting them to the cabin's life-support systems. Grissom's body was found lying mostly on the deck. His and White's suits were fused together. The body of Ed White, who mission protocol had tasked with opening the hatch, was lying back in his center couch. White would not have been able to open the inward-opening hatch because internal pressure had risen too high. Chaffee's job was to shut down the spacecraft systems and maintain communications with ground control. His body was still strapped into the right-hand seat.

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