Thomas Baron

Thomas Ronald "Tom" Baron ( 1938 – April 27, 1967) was a quality control and safety inspector for North American Aviation (NAA), when NAA was the primary contractor to build the Apollo command module.

Early life and education Baron was born in or around 1938, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He attended Liberty High School in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. After NAA learned of this, they fired him.

After the Apollo 1 fire, Baron wrote a 275-page report on NASA safety protocol violations, which he gave to Rep. Olin E. Teague's investigation at Cape Kennedy in Florida, on April 21, 1967.

The chairman of the NASA Oversight Committee claimed that Baron had made a valuable contribution to the Apollo fire probe, but that he had been "overzealous".

Death Six days after his testimony, Baron died instantly, along with his wife and stepdaughter, when a train crashed into their car near their home in Mims, Florida.