Watch: Missile Explosion On German Frigate During Training Exercise

New video and photos released this week show the extent of the damage on a German frigate following an apparent missile explosion last week during a training event off the coast of Norway.

FGS Sachsen (F 219) was operating with FGS Lübeck (F 214) near the Arctic Circle when it attempted to fire a Standard Missile (SM) 2 Block IIIA as part of the exercise, the service said in a release.

The footage, presumably shot from Lübeck, shows an explosion after just departing the vertical launch cell of the warship. The explosion rained down a shower of sparks and debris onto the frigate.

“We were standing in front of a glistening and glowing hot wall of fire,” German Capt. Thomas Hacken, who was on the bridge, said in a translation of a news release from the service.

Photos of ship posted on a German maritime news site show the explosion scorched the paint of the frigate’s bridge and the vertical launch cells battery. Two German sailors suffered minor injuries. After a brief port call in Norway, both frigates returned to their homeport of Wilhelmshaven, Germany, on the North Sea on Tuesday.

Officials at Raytheon, the company that built the SM-2, referred questions on the incident to the U.S. and German navies.

The incident is similar to a 2015 missile explosion over the U.S. guided-missile destroyer USS The Sullivans (DDG-68) during a training exercise off of Virginia. During the attempted launch on July 18, a similar SM-2 Block IIIA exploded shortly after launch from the destroyer. The explosion resulted in no injuries and only about a $100,000 in damages to the ship.

Press Release: news.usni.org

NOTE: Marine Insight does not have enough information to verify this video and cannot vouch for its accuracy. This video is for information purpose only.

Marine Insight does not own the rights of the video.

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