Fatal missile accidents due to human negligence

No matter how modern a weapon system is, if it encounters operator error, it can cause disaster.

A US Nike Ajax missile system. Photo: US Army

On July 1, the Taiwanese navy disciplined seven soldiers, including a vice admiral and a rear admiral, for mistakenly launching a supersonic anti-ship missile toward China, causing a Taiwanese fishing boat to sink and the captain to die, according to CNA.

The incident occurred when a Hsiung Feng III supersonic anti-ship missile was accidentally launched from a Chinchiang-class corvette during a training exercise near the base, and crashed into a fishing boat fishing near Penghu Island, causing the boat to break apart. Taiwan's military explained that the incident was due to "operational error" by human beings, and the captain and two non-commissioned officers directly on board the warship were demoted.

According to military analysts, this missile misfire has not caused too much damage, but it proves that no matter how modern a weapon is, an accident can still occur due to human negligence. If the misfired missile was a nuclear warhead, the consequences of the incident would certainly be much greater, and could push the world into disaster.

In an article on History.com, historian Elizabeth Hanes pointed out that in the history of the world's military, many incidents have occurred due to human error in the operation of weapons. The US military with modern weapons and equipment has also witnessed such incidents many times.

According to Hanes, perhaps the worst missile incident at sea for the US Navy was the horrific explosion that nearly sank the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal during the Vietnam War in 1967, killing 134 US soldiers.

On July 29, 1967, an F-4 Phantom was parked on the deck of an aircraft carrier when a missile accidentally detonated on its wing. The missile flew across the deck and hit an A-4 Skyhawk fighter-bomber piloted by John McCain, which was waiting to take off nearby. McCain was lucky to survive the explosion and later became a US senator.

Hit by a missile, the Skyhawk caught fire and fuel began to spill, causing the fire to spread rapidly to nearby aircraft. While sailors rushed to put out the fire, a 500 kg bomb attached to one of the aircraft exploded, killing many sailors and spreading the fire further, triggering a chain reaction, instantly engulfing half the aircraft carrier in flames.

The aircraft carrier USS Forrestal caught fire during the incident. Photo: US Navy

The powerful explosions from the bombs on the aircraft created large holes in the deck, while many pilots were trapped in the cockpit as the fire spread. It took a day for the sailors on the USS Forrestal to bring the fire under control. 20 aircraft were destroyed, 134 people were killed, and hundreds of sailors were injured.

Another incident involving a missile misfire occurred on US soil in 1955, but was more serious because it was an anti-aircraft missile carrying a nuclear warhead.

On April 14, 1955, Battery C was practicing training procedures with Nike Ajax nuclear-tipped missiles at Fort Meade, Maryland, USA, when suddenly the missile activated itself and left the launch pad, surprising the soldiers operating it.

Because the launcher was not fully raised when the incident occurred, the Ajax missile shot up into the sky at an oblique angle rather than vertically as designed, reaching an altitude of about 900 meters before the automatic safety mechanism activated, causing the missile to self-destruct in the air, creating a huge impulse and a rain of debris falling onto the nearby highway, according to the NYTimes.

The missile's warhead and guidance system were found intact a few hundred meters from the explosion site. According to the newspaper, if the missile had flown further and exploded on the ground, the consequences for the surrounding residents would have been unforeseeable. Because it did not hit the ground before detonating, the missile did not achieve the G-force necessary to activate the warhead's readiness mechanism.

The US military investigation found that it was raining heavily that afternoon, and Battery C, before removing the missile from the launch pad, did not realize that rainwater had seeped into the control equipment, causing an electrical short circuit. It was this electrical short circuit that is believed to have caused the missile to self-detonate. The commander of that missile brigade was removed from his post after the incident.

The US military also showed that negligence in handling missiles can also cause serious consequences, typically in the missile explosion right in the silo on September 19, 1980.

That day, a maintenance engineer from the US Air Force at the base in Damascus, Arkansas was assigned to perform routine inspection and maintenance on the Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile system. While doing so, he accidentally dropped a wrench into the missile silo, and this clumsiness caused a disaster.

A Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile silo destroyed in the explosion. Photo: US Army

The large wrench caused a small crack in the missile's compressed fuel tank, causing fuel to slowly leak out for eight hours, before exploding inside the silo, killing one US soldier and injuring 21 others.

After this huge explosion, the nuclear warhead at the top of the missile was blown out by the force, but fortunately, the safety mechanisms prevented it from detonating after the explosion. The warhead was found intact, helping the United States escape a nuclear disaster because of a wrench.

According to VNE