Liftoff of Liberty Bell 7

Liberty Bell 7 lifts off from Cape Canaveral, carrying Gus Grissom on the second American suborbital spaceflight, a near-repeat of Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 mission two months earlier. After a smooth fifteen-minute flight, the capsule's hatch blew open prematurely during splashdown, flooding the cabin and forcing Grissom to swim to safety as Liberty Bell 7 sank to the ocean floor. The capsule was not recovered until 1999, when an expedition raised it from nearly three miles beneath the Atlantic.