Ooops! See a missile explode aboard German warship

One thing no naval officer wants is that during a war exercise something goes wrong and, at sea, the ship will be damaged or casualty among the crew. However, incidents can happen - and a German air defense frigate was the scene of one of them recently.

Ooops!

According to Kyle Mizokami of Popular Mechanics, it all happened on June 21, when FGS Sachsen personnel fired a missile onboard during an exercise, but a system failure occurred and the artifact did not leave the silo. The frigate was off the coast of Norway and the missile eventually exploded on the ship itself. See below:

Footage has emerged from the Jun 21 SM-2 SAM misfire aboard the #Germany Navy vessel Sachsen (F219) (minor German language warning!) Pic.twitter.com/qXgn8qwHFF

- Joseph Dempsey (@JosephHDempsey) June 27, 2018

According to Kyle, the missile in question was an American-made air defense artifact and it is not yet known what caused the launch to fail. As far as it was released, when it fired, the engine ignited straight, but since the launch system didn't work and the missile got stuck in the silo, it exploded right there.

The bonfire you saw in the video above was caused by the rocket engine burning and, luckily, the fire was quickly controlled. However, two crew members suffered minor injuries and damage to the frigate was considerable. The missile, a Standard SM-2, measures about 4.5 meters in length and weighs over 680 kilograms, while the craft is designed to intercept enemy aircraft and missiles.

Significant damage

FGS Sachsen is the newest class of German frigates - equipped with a host of radars, sensors and all kinds of over-advanced airspace-focused paraphernalia. The vessels also have a vertical launching system (which houses the missile-containing silos) that is in front of the bridge. Check out the damage below:

See how it was scorched in the blast area? For the whole thing could have turned out a lot worse - if the other missiles inside the silos had burned down. Of course, the launch system is all reinforced and is designed to avoid this kind of situation, especially in the case of real battles, as there may be detonations there. But, right ...

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