After the first failure in 2016, the second test launch of the British Trident nuclear missile also failed. According to what was revealed exclusively by Sun, the test took place on January 30 in the presence of Defense Minister Grant Shapps on board the Vanguard submarine. With him, the British naval commander, Ben Key. The missile, launched from the submarine, is believed to have crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in a stretch of sea visible from the vehicle itself. The trajectory was supposed to cover more than 9,000 kilometers, but it ended in just a few dozen meters. The Ministry of Defense simply confirmed that “an anomaly” had occurred. A ministerial source attempted to downplay the scale of the incident by speaking to the BBC of “a specific problem linked exclusively to a test condition” and ensure that the Kingdom’s nuclear deterrent remains “safe and effective”. However, the accident was “really embarrassing” both for Great Britain and for the company which produces the Trident missile, underlines the same British television.
“A worrying flop”
From what has been revealed so far, it appears that the problem was triggered by a fault in the flight system. The ministerial source, however, insisted that the Trident missile “remains an effective weapon capable of being fired in a hypothetical real conflict situation.” No further details have been made public due to “national security” reasons. Despite partial assurances from the Ministry of Defence, there is unrest in Parliament: the Labor opposition has urged the government to clarify what happened and described the missile failure as “worrying”. Meanwhile, peace activists from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (Cnd) return to the charge against nuclear energy: “The failure occurred after the revelations about a renovation of the Trident which cost half a billion of books. This waste of public money must stop. »
Cover photo: The Sun
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