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US Hellfire missile accidentally sent to Cuba by Madrid freight forwarder
AN AIR forwarder in Madrid incorrectly placed shipment on Air France flight to Havana in "the most damaging misshipment officials can recall of sensitive military technology," reports the Wall Street Journal.
The unarmed US Hellfire missile sent to Europe for training purposes was wrongly shipped from there to Cuba by a forwarder working for Lockheed-Martin.
US officials said the case of the missing missile, while highly unusual, points to long-standing concerns about the security of international commercial shipping and the difficulty of keeping close tabs on important items.
The missile was sent by its manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, from Orlando International Airport in early 2014 to Spain to be used in a NATO military exercise, with the shipment clearly marked as containing material subject to rigorous export controls.
Following the exercise, the missile was packaged in Rota, Spain, said a US official, where it was put into the truck belonging to a forwarder.
That company released the missile to another shipping firm that was supposed to put the missile on a flight to Frankfurt, Germany, before boarding another flight to Florida.
At some point, officials loading the first flight realised the missile it expected to be loading onto the aircraft wasn't among the cargo, the government official said.
After tracing the cargo, officials realised that the missile had been loaded onto a truck operated by Air France, which took the missile to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.
There, it was loaded onto a "mixed pallet" of cargo and placed on an Air France flight. By the time the freight-forwarding firm in Madrid tracked down the missile, it was on the Air France flight, headed to Havana, and said the report.
When the aircraft landed in Havana, a local official spotted the labelling on the shipping crate and seized it, people familiar with the case said. Around June 2014, Lockheed Martin officials realised the missile was missing, was likely in Cuba, and notified the State Department.
The unarmed US Hellfire missile sent to Europe for training purposes was wrongly shipped from there to Cuba by a forwarder working for Lockheed-Martin.
US officials said the case of the missing missile, while highly unusual, points to long-standing concerns about the security of international commercial shipping and the difficulty of keeping close tabs on important items.
The missile was sent by its manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, from Orlando International Airport in early 2014 to Spain to be used in a NATO military exercise, with the shipment clearly marked as containing material subject to rigorous export controls.
Following the exercise, the missile was packaged in Rota, Spain, said a US official, where it was put into the truck belonging to a forwarder.
That company released the missile to another shipping firm that was supposed to put the missile on a flight to Frankfurt, Germany, before boarding another flight to Florida.
At some point, officials loading the first flight realised the missile it expected to be loading onto the aircraft wasn't among the cargo, the government official said.
After tracing the cargo, officials realised that the missile had been loaded onto a truck operated by Air France, which took the missile to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.
There, it was loaded onto a "mixed pallet" of cargo and placed on an Air France flight. By the time the freight-forwarding firm in Madrid tracked down the missile, it was on the Air France flight, headed to Havana, and said the report.
When the aircraft landed in Havana, a local official spotted the labelling on the shipping crate and seized it, people familiar with the case said. Around June 2014, Lockheed Martin officials realised the missile was missing, was likely in Cuba, and notified the State Department.
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