Fire In The Cockpit

Astronauts Virgil I. Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee were killed tonight in a flash fire during tests of the Apollo Saturn 204 vehicle at Cape Kennedy The fire occurred while the astronauts were in the spacecraft during the countdown of a simulated flight test The accident occurred at 5:31 Houston time Or at T-10 minutes prior to the planned, simulated liftoff The spacecraft was atop the Saturn launch vehicle some 218 feet above the launchpad The hatches on the spacecraft had been closed Emergency crews were hampered by dense smoke in removing the hatches And an unknown number of launch crew workers were treated for smoke inhalation At the Cape Kennedy Dispensary The crew had entered the spacecraft at 2 o’clock this afternoon Minor difficulties had been encountered during the countdown The difficulty was the Environmental Control System And the Communication System All recorded data has been impounded pending an investigation into the accident that claimed the lives of astronauts Grissom, White and Chaffee