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The Impossible Explosion: How 47 Sailors Were Silenced on Iowa
The Impossible Explosion: How 47 Sailors Were Silenced on Iowa
A fireball moving two thousand feet per second tore through Turret Two on April 19, 1989, killing forty-seven men and releasing cyanide gas from burning polyurethane-yet the powder canisters were stamped "Do Not Use with 2,700-pound projectiles." How did outdated propellant, unauthorized experiments, and ignored warnings lead to a catastrophe that some in the Navy then covered up?
In this episode, we lay out the sequence of events on the USS Iowa, the ship's condition, the people on board, and the decisions that preceded the blast…
The skinny
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