CAPE KENNEDY, Fla. (AP) – The three Apollo I astronauts were killed tonight by a flash fire that trapped them aboard the huge spacecraft designed to take man to the moon by 1970.
Locked behind sealed hatches and killed instantly just 218 feet above the ground were:
Air Force Lt. Col. Virgil (Gus) Grissom, a space pioneer and the first man to soar twice into the heavens, Air Force Lt. Col. Edward White II, first American to walk in space, and Navy Lt. Cmdr. Roger B. Chaffee, a rookie eagerly awaiting his first flight.
The three were hooked into a pure oxygen breathing system in their spacesuits and the oxygen fed the fire. Valiant pad workers trying to rescue the trapped men fell back one by one as they fought through dense, acid smoke toward the capsule.
Although the tragedy postponed indefinitely the Apollo’s scheduled Feb. 21 blast off, space officials and President Johnson vowed to press ahead with the moon program despite the deaths.