Spanish Fighter Over Estonia Accidentally Fires Missile

[tomahawk6]

A ground search for the AMRAAM type weapon is underway.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/spanish-fighter-jet-accidentally-fires-missile-over-estonia/ar-BBLDqJe?ocid=spartanntp

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Tad awkward, good thing it was a Spanish aircraft, less propaganda value.

 

[tomahawk6]

Is it hard to accidentally fire a missile ?

 

[brihard]

Isn’t it great when someone self identifies as Duty Officer every weekend for the next year?

 

[SupersonicMax]

Is it hard to accidentally fire a missile ?

In the Hornet (or any other fighters I have flown), it’s at least a three-actuation deal:

(Get out of simulation mode)
Activate the Master Arm (which is normally witness-wired for mission during which you don’t intend to fire weapons, in Canada anyway)
Select weapon
Activate trigger

Now, it could be possible that the aircraft was never put into Sim mode (it generally defaults in live mode), was conducting training, selected the weapon (as you’d do in training), activate the master-arm switch (which most people will do in training to build muscle memory) and shot at an appropriate time during the training evolution (which we do all the time).

Bottom line: there are multiple safety features, none of which is particularly difficult to forget/overlook.  In any way, that pilot did not follow procedures/checklists.  It is, however, not the first time, nor the last time, this happened.

It is very possible that the pilot was on a practice scramble where things happen much faster than a normal start.

 

[tomahawk6]

Thanks for the education.A number of years ago the USAF had it happen.