Missile misses target
Patriot fails to hit target fired from Fort Wingate

A Hera target missile launches from Fort Wingate Army Depot on Wednesday morning as the sun comes up. The missile was lunched from the Gallup area on its way to White Sands Missile Range and was to be shot down once it reached the test site. — © 2009 Gallup Independent / Brian Leddy

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — The Hera missile fired from the Fort Wingate Army Depot about 7:25 a.m. Wednesday did its job perfectly.That wasn’t the case, however, with the Patriot 3 missile that was supposed to intercept it and destroy it over the White Sands Missile Range.

A spokesman for the test, Dan O’Boyle, said late Wednesday morning that the test indicates the Patriot failed to hit its target and scientists connected with the program have no immediate reason for why it did not.

Another spokesman, Monté Marlin, said weather was not a factor, although the area around the missile range had been experiencing high winds over the past few days that threatened to cancel the test.

But the wind died down enough Wednesday morning to allow the test — the first one involving the Fort Wingate Army depot since 2004 — to proceed.

Officials at the missile range are not calling the test a complete failure because even a miss allows for scientists to gather needed data on the performance of the Patriot.

“That’s why we test, to make sure things are right before they go into the field,” said O’Boyle. “It’s a normal progression that a weapons systems go through.”

When the military was doing regular launches from Fort Wingate in the late 1990s and early part of this century, a couple of the 10 firings during that period also resulted in the Patriot missing the target, but scientists were able to correct those problems to the point where earlier versions of the missile were used successfully in the field.

The PAC 3, as it is called, had undergone earlier testing and had been used in combat in Iraq in 2003. The tests now are to determine if modifications since then have affected the ability of the missile to do its job.

Marlin said that one more test is expected to be done of the system, probably in August.

Wednesday’s test was done under the auspices of the Aviation and Missile Command in Huntsville, Ala.

— The Associated Press
contributed to this article