Navy Isolates Defect in Trident Missile
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WASHINGTON — The Navy has found the mechanical problem that caused a Trident 2 missile to explode last March, and corrective design changes will contribute to a three-month delay in deployment, a military official said Tuesday.
Dan Howard, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said a Navy board of inquiry had blamed the failure on a mechanical linkage in the first-stage nozzle. The Pentagon previously had disclosed preliminary findings, made final by the Navy board.
“We now expect the first operational missiles to be at sea on the (submarine) USS Tennessee in March” of 1990, he said.
The Navy’s investigation began March 21, shortly after a Trident 2 missile fired from the Tennessee blew up four seconds after launch.
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