Human Slip-ups, Technical Errors: Top Five Failed Funny Rocket Launches in Recent History

India sacked three Air Force officers on Tuesday over the accidental launch of a BrahMos cruise missile into Pakistan on March 9. Fortunately, no one was hurt in the dangerous incident. With advanced aerospace technology proliferating around the world, it’s no wonder accidents involving missiles and rockets are occurring more and more often.

An Indian court of inquiry has determined that the Air Force men who inadvertently launched a missile into Pakistan this spring had “deviat[ed] from standard operating procedures,” with their termination making good on Defense Minister Rajnath Singh’s promise to bring those responsible for the blunder to account. The Pakistani Foreign Office expressed alarm over the “grave” incident, saying the missile launch called into question India’s “security protocols and technical safeguards against accidental or unauthorized launch of missiles in a nuclearized environment.” Singh dismissed these concerns, assuring that safety procedures “are of the highest order and are reviewed from time to time.”

As late American astronaut Sally Ride once said, “rocket science is tough, and rockets have a way of falling.” The earliest form of rocket technology was invented by the Chinese in the 13th century, and perfected by the Germans, Soviets, and Americans during the Second World War and the Cold War. However, even after decades of tinkering by some of the brightest minds, and thousands of tests, launches of missiles and rockets have a habit of going awry, especially when carried out by nations new to the technology.

North Korean Birthday Bash

On April 15, 2016, North Korea carried out a test of a mystery ballistic missile, with the launch coinciding with the 104th anniversary of the birthday of the country’s founder, Kim Il-sung. The missile was later revealed to be a Hwasong-10, a mobile intermediate-range ballistic missile with a range of up to 4,000 km, and payload of up to 1,250 kg. South Korean military command told Yonhap that the missile test ended in failure after it deviated from its trajectory and slammed into the Sea of Japan.

As with everything in life, practice makes perfect. The next three tests of the Hwasong-10, carried out in April and May of the same year, also ended in failure. However, on June 22, 2016, Pyongyang announced the Hwasong-10’s successful launch, with South Korea, the US, and Japan begrudgingly recognizing that the missile had landed about 400 km away from the launch site in the Sea of Japan after reaching an apogee of about 1,000 km.

In the years since, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has gone on to bigger and better things, including the Hwasong-17, a monster mobile two-stage intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of up to 17,000 km, a payload of up to 3,500 kg, and the capability to reach any point in the continental United States. North Korean President Kim Jong-un showed off the missile’s successful test launch in a rad music video-style presentation in March.

The Time Spain Lost a Missile Near the Russian Border

On August 7, 2018, a Spanish Eurofighter Typhoon 2000 jet deployed in the Baltics on a NATO air policing mission accidentally fired an AIM-120 air-to-air missile during drills over southern Estonia, about 65 km from the Russian border. Authorities expressed concerns that the missile could have hit the ground without self-destructing despite an onboard failsafe system. Estonia’s Defense Forces asked residents of nearby townships to inform them if they found any missile parts. The lost missile was never recovered. Spain’s Defense Ministry refused to discipline the pilots who launch the AIM-120, and no cause for the launch was given. In February 2019, Estonia’s Defense Ministry concluded that pilot error and failure to comply with safety rules were to blame. Fortunately, no one was hurt in the incident.

South Korea’s Explosive Error

In March 2019, South Korea’s military had its own BrahMos-style blooper, with a routine maintenance check at an Air Force Base in Chuncheon somehow ending in the accidental launch of a Cheongung medium-range surface-to-air missile. The missile blew up midair, in accordance with a built-in self-destruction mechanism that triggers when guidance systems fail after launch. Authorities blamed human error for the blunder, with the missile’s operators referred to a disciplinary panel, and the military promising measures to prevent similar accidents in future. No one was hurt in the incident, and no material damage was reported.

SpaceX Blooper Reel

While Elon Musk and his US military-industrial complex-backed startup company SpaceX are often revered as some kind of genius space-faring gods, the reality is that just like any aerospace corporation engaged in complex mathematical, mechanical, and engineering calculations, its rockets have been prone to failure.

In late 2017, about a year after a June 2016 incident where a rocket booster ran out of propellant and toppled over onto a barge and exploded into a massive fireball, the company released a self-deprecating video showing some of the many failed tests. Between late 2020 and early 2021, SpaceX lost four prototypes of its reusable Starship super-heavy-lift launch vehicle, but since then it’s been clear sailing.

Russian Rocket’s Michael Bay-Style Close Call

It was a cloudy, muggy day at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 1, 2013, when a Russian Proton-2 heavy-lift space rocket was placed on the launch pad. Unfortunately, shortly after liftoff, the rocket and $182 million in onboard GLONASS satellites began veering dangerously off course. The entire incident was caught on live television. The rocket’s booster pitched rapidly to the left and right, with the rocket breaking apart in midair and becoming engulfed in flames as 600 tons of heptyl, amyl, and kerosene fuel spilled from its reservoirs. Seconds later, the rocket smashed into the ground, detonating into a massive fireball seen from kilometers away, giving way to a massive mushroom cloud of smoke.

Unbelievably, no one was hurt, thanks to a well-oiled security system which requires launch personnel to hide in impregnable concrete bunkers during launches. An investigation concluded that the accident occurred due to a failure of the rocket’s first stage angular velocity sensors, responsible for yaw control, with the systems installed incorrectly. The Proton-M has proven a difficult space rocket for Roscosmos to master, with 11 of 112 launches ending in partial or total failure, meaning a total launch success rate of about 90 percent.