A pair of Spanish Eurofighter EF2000s. Spanish Air Force
The Drive: Whoops! Spanish Eurofighter Jet Accidentally Fires An Air-To-Air Missile Over Estonia
It's not clear yet if this was somehow a fault with the aircraft or pilot error, but it's not good either way.
A Spanish Air Force Eurofighter EF2000 has accidentally fired an AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile, or AMRAAM, while on patrol over Estonia. A search is now underway for any remnants of the weapon and Estonian authorities have, understandably, already launched an investigation into what exactly happened.
The incident occurred on Aug. 7, 2018, at around 3:44 PM local time in the Pangodi area of Estonia’s Tartu County, which situated less than 50 miles west of the country’s border with Russia, according to local reports. In May 2018, Spain deployed six of its Eurofighters to the region as part of NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission, where they joined Portuguese F-16AM and French Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets.
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Update: NATO Fighter Jet Accidentally Fires Air-to-Air Missile Near Russian Border (Popular Mechanics).
WNU Editor: This is not good, and explanations on why this occurred are not reassuring.
1 comment:
WNU Editor,
Your comment is essentially spot on, however, I don't think it goes far enough. Being a blogger and having a wide audience you don't wish to be controversial. I get this and understand fully. Generally I try not to be as well and may have offended some for which I apologize.
With that said here goes. The article dances around the issue. It details what would need to be done to fire this missile and concludes that pilot error and mechanical error "neither of which seems particularly likely." Correction: after detailing the safety mechanisms in place the correct conclusion is both of those are virtually impossible. To conclude that this was an accident is so preposterous as to require extraordinary evidence of which the article does not present. The correct conclusion: the pilot deliberately fired this missile. Any investigator worth their salt would start with this assumption and work from there keeping an open mind for such extraordinary evidence of course. Absent such evidence the only conclusion is this was deliberate. This is further corroborated by the fact that no one seems to be able to find the debris. It most likely either hit is target or was obliterated by its intended target. As such, there is no debris for anyone to find.
Next we look at the countries involved, Spain, Estonia, Portugal, France, and Lithuania. They all have in common NATO membership or close relations with such countries and this is a NATO operation. Keep in mind that America and Americans are going to bear the brunt of any fall out/reprisals for NATO operations that go off the rails. These countries will not. So what were these people up to and what are they up to? At a minimum, US officials need to be actively involved in this investigation with full participation in real time seeing and experiencing everything at the same time the officials of these countries are.
What are/were these people up to? The fact that they can drag us into a war at any time based upon this "alliance" is troubling and should be to any American. This is compounded by the fact these nations have wildly divergent interests from those of America and have not always shown themselves to be friendly to America.
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