Disturbing Audio From Inside Space Capsule During The Apollo 1 Disaster

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Audio from the disastrous Apollo program's first crewed flight has been made public.

The first low Earth orbit test of the Apollo 1 spacecraft was scheduled to take out from Cape Kennedy, Florida, on February 21, 1967.

But on January 27, during a pre-flight test, a disastrous cabin fire occurred, postponing the mission's launch.

Devastating audio of some of the three crew members' last moments has now been made public. 

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The crew was inside the capsule.

During the 'plugs-out' test, Pilot Roger B. Chaffee, Senior Pilot Ed White, and Command Pilot Gus Grissom were inside Apollo 1.

According to the NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive, the test "simulated what would happen when the flight is launched," with the "Command Module mounted on the Saturn 1B on the launch pad."

Saturn 1B, however, lacked fuel.

Almost immediately after entering the capsule, the squad ran across issues.

The test was postponed due to minor complications, and at 6:30 p.m., following the astronauts' approximate five hours in the capsule, a spike was noted 'in the AC bus 2 voltage data'.

The astronauts' realization that there is a fire is captured on tape thanks to a microphone one of them was wearing.

An audio clip that @Morbidful uploaded to X, the platform that was once known as Twitter, features the following person: "Hey! There's a fire in the cockpit."

A few seconds later, there's another voice saying: "We have a bad fire,"

The last crew connection with people outside stopped "17 seconds after the first indication of the start of the fire," according to the NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. 

At that point, the astronauts can be heard yelling before the audio finally cuts out.

The hatch, which would have opened in 'perfect conditions' and likely required 90 seconds, was apparently unable to open in time due to the cabin filling with pure oxygen, which caused the fire to spread swiftly throughout the capsule.

The door opened five minutes after the fire began, but it was tragically too late to save the three astronauts who died as a result of the fire tearing through the command module.

Examinations into the disaster revealed that 'a spark from a short circuit in a bundle of wires' was probably what started the fire.

Following the Apollo 1 tragedy, the program underwent significant modifications.

These included adopting a nitrogen-oxygen mixture instead of pure oxygen and installing a new hatch accessible from both inside and outside the spacecraft.