Army Launches Probe of Fatal Pershing 2 Fire : Blaze That Killed 3 GIs Sparks Protest Against Missiles in W. Germany

U.S. Army experts on Saturday began an investigation into the cause of a fire in the rocket engine of an unarmed Pershing 2 missile that killed three American soldiers, injured 16 others and touched off renewed demands for removal of U.S. missiles.

Two groups of American investigators--a 15-member team from the army’s U.S.-based Missile Command and another from the U.S. Army Safety Center at Fort Rucker, Ala.--arrived in West Germany to study Friday’s accident. U.S. authorities based in West Germany began a separate inquiry.

“Investigations into the cause of the accident are under way,” said an army statement Saturday.

The accident seemed certain to embarrass Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democrat-led coalition government, which has been criticized by the German peace movement for accepting the missiles. The goverment has avoided comment on the accident, insisting that the matter is being handled by U.S. authorities.

While public and press reaction has been muted so far in West Germany, the Social Democrats and the anti-nuclear Greens party have seized on the incident to question the reliability of the controversial missiles.

‘The Question Arises’ Erwin Horn, a Social Democrat who is deputy chairman of the parliamentary defense committee, said Saturday, “The question naturally arises whether the Pershing 2 missiles being deployed are technically up to scratch.”

Horn said the Kohl government was shirking its public duty by refusing to conduct a rigorous inquiry into the U.S. Army’s methods of handling and operating the Pershings.

“Such a serious accident could be an indication of technical shortcomings,” Horn said. “The parliamentary defense committee must be told the full facts to be able to make its own evaluation.”

Another Social Democrat member of Parliament, Dieter Spori, charged, “The Pershing 2 was deployed with hectic speed, despite repeated breakdowns in American tests and without regard to the ensuing potential danger.” Spori represents the district in which the accident occurred.

His remarks followed a chorus of calls from the Greens--the third largest party in West Germany’s Parliament--for the missiles to be withdrawn.

“It gives further reason to demand the immediate withdrawal of all atomic weapons from West Germany,” said Lukas Beckmann, a Greens spokesman.

Soviet Reaction In Moscow, the official Soviet news agency Tass said the accident “has sent tremors down the backs of officials in the U.S. Department of Defense.” Tass quoted specialists who warned that such an accident “could become the cause of outbreak of a nuclear war.”

The three fatalities and the 16 men injured--three of them critically--occurred when the solid fuel in the first-stage motor of an unarmed two-stage Pershing 2 missile ignited at the Waldheide U.S. missile training ground, near Heilbronn, 50 miles north of Stuttgart, army officials said.

The 33-foot missile was one of at least 54 Pershing 2 missiles deployed during the past 13 months in West Germany as part of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization plan to counter Soviet SS-20s targeted on Western Europe.

Army spokesmen stressed that the missile was unarmed at the time of the accident, which officials said occurred during a “routine operation” in a tent at the training ground. Warheads are believed to be stored separately from the rockets.

Details of the accident were sketchy. An army spokesman said Saturday that the missile was new and had just been unpacked from a crate when the accident occurred.

The solid fuel somehow ignited and began to burn as if the missile had been fired, the spokesman said. The missile, however, remained stationary “because it was not in a firing configuration” and was clamped to its launcher-transporter, he said.

The spokesman would not comment on reports that the missile was dropped as it was being lifted out of its crate by a crane, then caught fire.

Two soldiers were burned to death almost immediately--apparently by exhaust flames--and one more died en route to a hospital. The dead were identified as Sgt. Todd A. Zephier of Wagner, S.D.; Staff Sgt. John E. Leach of Salem, Mo., and Pfc. Darryl L. Shirley of Irving, Tex.