Accident
A short circuit in the replaced main sequencer caused the second stage engines, while being tested before launch, to fire inadvertently. This detonated the first-stage fuel tanks directly below, destroying the missile in an enormous explosion. Automatically activated cameras set around the launching pad filmed the explosion. People near the rocket were instantly incinerated; those farther away were burned to death or poisoned by the toxic fuel component vapors. Andrei Sakharov described many details—as soon as the engines were fired, most of the personnel there ran to the perimeter but were trapped inside the security fence and then engulfed in the fireball of burning fuel. The resultant explosion incinerated Nedelin, a top aide, the USSR's top missile guidance designer, and seventy-one other officers and engineers. Missile designer Mikhail Yangel and test range commanding officer survived only because they had left to smoke a cigarette behind a bunker a few hundred yards away.
Read more about this topic: Nedelin Catastrophe
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