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.
Shadow defence secretary John Healey said on X: ‘Reports of a Trident test failure are concerning.
‘The Defence Secretary will want to reassure Parliament that this test has no impact on the effectiveness of the UK’s deterrent operations.’
A Trident missile is a strategic nuclear weapon launched out of a submarine.
Towering at 44ft, each ballistic missile can strike targets up to 4,000 miles away as they rip through the air at about 13,000 miles an hour.
The standard model used since the 1990s, the Trident II D5, will likely be the go-to nuclear warhead for British navies for the next decade.
Both Lockheed Martin, the major American defence contractor that makes the missiles, and British defence officials say the Trident – effectively the UK’s last resort against enemy attacks – is ‘one of the most reliable weapons systems in the world’.
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.
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.
A spokeswoman for the MoD said: ‘HMS Vanguard and her crew have been proven fully capable of operating the UK’s continuous at-sea deterrent, passing all tests during a recent demonstration and shakedown operation (DASO) — a routine test to confirm that the submarine can return to service following deep maintenance work.
‘The test has reaffirmed the effectiveness of the UK’s nuclear deterrent, in which we have absolute confidence.
‘During the test, an anomaly occurred.
‘As a matter of national security, we cannot provide further information on this, however, we are confident that the anomaly was event specific, and therefore there are no implications for the reliability of the wider Trident missile systems and stockpile.
‘The UK’s nuclear deterrent remains safe, secure and effective.’
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