On April 19, 1989, 260 nautical miles northeast of Puerto Rico, a catastrophic explosion ripped through Turret 2 of the battleship USS Iowa during a gunnery exercise. Instantly taking the lives of 47 sailors, it remains the U.S. Navy’s worst peacetime loss of life on a warship since WWII. Instead of uncovering systemic operational failures, an initial Navy JAGMAN investigation blamed 24-year-old Gunner’s Mate Second Class Clayton Hartwig, falsely alleging he deliberately set off the blast in a suicidal rage.

Host Captain Tim "Lucky" Kinsella unpacks the technical, human, and institutional failures behind the tragedy from 45-year-old WWII era gunpowder and unauthorized gunnery experiments to a complete breakdown in the chain of command. Kinsella reveals how an independent forensic investigation led by Sandia National Laboratories dismantled  ...