Gruman Sent Rockwell an Invoice for "Towing" For Their Part In Apollo 13

Mushtang said:

In the article, "It was a manufacturing problem: The wires on the stirring fan inside the tank short-circuited because of faulty Teflon insulation, causing the oxygen to blow up violently."

There's so much wrong with that. It makes me sad that editors didn't do the slightest bit of fact checking on the cause.

The insulation wasn't faulty, there was a long series of events that led to a heater running at the wrong voltage getting stuck in the on position for too long before the rocket was ever launched, which burned off a section of the perfectly good insulation. This resulted in sparks being produced when the fan was turned on in the 100% oxygen tank which caused materials in the tank to start burning. Oxygen doesn't blow up violently. The increased pressure of the rapidly burning materials is what blew out the tank.

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