The nose cone of a US-made Standard Missile 2 (SM-2) surface-to-air missile deployed at a navy base in Yilan County was reportedly damaged by human error, suggesting a costly mismanagement of armaments by the military.
On an unknown date, a soldier accidentally knocked the missile during a routine maintenance check at a base in the county’s Suao Township (蘇澳), causing the missile’s nose cone to fracture, a report in the Chinese-language Apple Daily said yesterday.
However, the officer in charge of the maintenance work, a chief petty officer surnamed Lin (林), did not report the incident, but instead covered the cracks with adhesive tape.
Photo: Lo Tien-pin, Taipei Times
The navy did not discover the damage until Jan. 9, when base personnel were scheduled to relocate the missile, according to the report.
The missiles cost about NT$30 million (US$966,619) each and have a maximum range of more than 150km. They are mostly deployed on major combat ships to intercept missiles and fighter jets.
Navy Command Headquarters yesterday confirmed the incident, but said that the damage was not caused by “external factors” such as human error.
The navy has “wrapped” the missile to preserve it and the missile “can be redeployed when the necessary parts are replaced,” the navy said.
The navy said it follows due process in maintaining its missiles, rejecting accusations that the weapon was not stored in the low-humidity environment stipulated in its maintenance manual, as a simple knock should not have caused the cracks.
Senior military analyst Erich Shih (施孝瑋) said the repairs could cost the navy up to tens of thousands of US dollars because Taiwan cannot produce the technical ceramics which make up the damaged nose cone.
“Slight damage to the nose cone — which shields a missile’s radar system — changes a missile’s aerodynamic configuration and the radar system could be damaged if the missile was launched,” Shih said.
It was likely that the navy failed to control the missile’s storage environment, exposing it to too much heat and humidity, or it could have been damaged when it was unloaded from a ship or put in a silo, he said.
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