Denmark's military announced that a missile failure on a Navy ship resulted in the closure of airspace and shipping lanes near the Great Belt Strait, a major shipping strait off the Danish coast. The BBC reports this, explaining that the National Maritime Authority has issued a notice to vessels warning to avoid part of the Great Belt due to the risk of “falling missile fragments” and asking ships to drop anchor if necessary. A naval exercise began in the area last March and will end on Friday, the BBC recalls.
The Danish military said the problem with the missile occurred “during a mandatory test in which the missile launcher is activated and cannot be deactivated.” “Until the missile launcher is deactivated, there is a risk that the missile could fire and fly a few kilometers away,” the army added. The alarm concerns an area southwest of the city of Korsor, about 4 km south of the Great Belt Bridge that crosses the strait. The bridge remained open to traffic.
The Defense Ministry said the missile contained 150kg of explosives, adding that it was not armed and would not have exploded if it had crashed into the sea. The incident comes at the end of a difficult week for the Danish navy. Defense chief General Flemming Lentfer was fired on Wednesday for failing to report a weapons systems malfunction on a Danish frigate, the Iver Huitfeldt, in the Red Sea, busy safeguarding maritime traffic from Houthi attacks in the area. Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said he had lost his trust in Lentfer, who did not inform the Defense Ministry that the frigate's radar and missile systems failed when it was attacked by a drone controlled by Houthi militants .
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