UK Nuclear Missile Test Fails Again After Trident Weapon Belly Flops Into Ocean

A nuclear Trident missile estimated to have firepower rivalling Hiroshima misfired and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.

In what is the second flop for Britain after the last trial launch in 2016 failed, the test was carried out from the HMS Vanguard off the coast of Florida.

The 60-tonne dud missile’s boosters failed as it was propelled from the Royal Navy submarine before ‘plopping’ into the sea just near the sub.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed Tuesday night that an ‘anomaly’ occurred during a routine drill of the Trident II missile on January 30.

Adding to the embarrassment, First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Ben Key and defence secretary Grant Shapps were onboard the 150-metre vessel to witness the test.

Defence officials stressed, however, that Britain’s nuclear deterrent remains ‘safe, secure and effective’.

The submarine crew fired off the Trident II missile, which was packed with dummy warheads, into the air using compressed gas in the test tubes.

However according to The Sun, which first reported the story, the weapon’s first-stage boosters did not ignite and ended up in the seabed off Port Canaveral.

‘It left the submarine but it just went plop, right next to them,’ a source told the tabloid.

It’s understood that if the same exercise was carried out for a real mission, it would have been successful.

Ministers are expected to make a statement on the incident to the House of Commons today, according to Wednesday’s order paper.

The Defence Secretary will want to reassure Parliament that this test has no impact on the effectiveness of the UK’s deterrent operations.’

The HMS Vanguard is one of four of the so-called Vanguard-class nuclear submarines that have been patrolling the seas since 1994.

Britain has launched a dozen Trident II missiles. But in 2016, one missile fired from HMS Vengeance veered off course due to a problem with the ‘data acquisition system’ and automatically self-destructed.


What is a Trident missile?
A Trident missile is a strategic nuclear weapon launched out of a submarine – it’s effectively the UK’s last resort against enemy attacks.

Towering at 44 feet and weighing 58,500kg, each ballistic missile can strike targets up to 4,000 miles away (accurate to within 90 metres) as they rip through the air at about 13,000 miles an hour.

They cost nearly £17,000,000 to make.

The standard model used since the 1990s, the Trident II D5, will likely be the go-to nuclear warhead for US and British navies for the next decade.

Who makes Trident missiles?
Lockheed Martin is the major American defence contractor that makes the missiles.

How powerful is a Trident missile?
A Trident submarine carries enough nuclear firepower that it could cause more than 10,000,000 civilian casualties, packed with about 40 nuclear warheads rammed into eight missiles.

That’s a lot of firepower, according to experts. One sub’s worth of nuclear arms alone is greater than the explosive power of bombs dropped in World War II – including the two atomic bombs that shattered Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

To give you an idea, there are about 100,000 tonnes (100 kilotonnes or 100kt) of TNT in a single Trident nuclear warhead.

The nuclear bomb that devastated Hiroshima had 15kt – by modern-day standards, that’s considered a ‘low-yield’ weapon.

According to NukeMap, if a 100kT Trident missile landed right on the Houses of Parliament, everything within a 1,390 foot radius would be vaporised. Most of Westminster would be flooded with cancer-inducing radiation.

Central London would be flattened by the miles-wide ‘moderate’ blast. ‘Injuries are universal, fatalities are widespread’, the website says.

The effects of the blast would stretch roughly nearly six miles outwards, shattering windows in areas as far out as Tooting, Lewisham and Hackney.

Who tests Trident missiles?
For the most part, the US Navy carries out any practice launches of the weapons.

Approximately 191 test runs have been successful since design completion in 1989, according to Lockheed Martin in September, making it ‘the most reliable test record for a large ballistic missile’.

Britain only conducts practice missile launches every three to five years due to – you guessed it money worries.

Both countries on either side of the Atlantic have two good reasons to test a missile already well-known for doing its job well: to double-check that the submarine can fire it and remind potential foes that they have nuclear arms to hand.

Have launches failed in the past like this one?
Not really. One expert told the BBC in 2017 that there have been fewer than 10 failures in the weapon’s history – at least those that have been made public.