The Nation - News from May 21, 1989

The powder used in the Iowa’s 16-inch gun turrets, where an explosion killed 47 sailors on April 19, may have been stored at dangerously high temperatures before it was loaded aboard, according to a published report. The Virginian-Pilot and the Ledger-Star said that cannon charges were stored in uncooled barges at the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station for five months last summer while the battleship was undergoing repairs at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Va. A Navy manual states that exposure to such heat dangerously accelerates the decomposition of chemicals used to keep the charges stable. On board the ship, the powder is kept in cooled magazines. A spokesman for the Naval Sea Systems Command told the Norfolk newspaper that the Navy investigation was focusing on whether the months the powder spent sealed in the barges caused it to become unstable.