Navy Investigators Focusing on Stark’s Failure to Detect Missile

The Navy’s investigation of the devastating attack on the frigate Stark is focusing on why the ship’s sophisticated Phalanx system failed to detect and destroy an incoming Iraqi missile, Pentagon sources said Friday.

The sources said high-level officials here have received no information to contradict an assertion by the ship’s captain that his vessel’s defensive systems were “fully operational” when it was attacked by an Iraqi warplane in the Persian Gulf last Sunday.

But the officials are reported to be puzzled by the apparent lack of radar warning that a missile was approaching. The plane fired from a distance of about 12 miles, officials have said, but the first warning apparently came seconds before impact from a sailor posted as a lookout.

Thirty-seven sailors were killed in the attack, which has stirred fresh concern and debate over U.S. operations in the volatile region.

The team of Navy investigators in Bahrain, where the heavily damaged ship is now anchored, sent a classified message to the Pentagon on Friday offering “no findings” but stating that the initial inquiry has narrowed to “focus on the status of the Phalanx,” according to the Associated Press.

One official, who spoke on condition he not be identified, said the inquiry’s focus on the Phalanx system “is obvious--it is the close-in defensive system, and the ship obviously didn’t defend itself successfully against the missile.”

No Mention of Problems

But this official said he had no evidence to substantiate reports quoting unnamed Navy technicians as saying the frigate left port the day before the attack with its Phalanx system in need of an unavailable computer part.

On that fateful Sunday, the Stark had sent the Pentagon a routine daily report on its battle readiness and made no mention of any problems with its Phalanx system, this official said.

The radar-controlled Phalanx system is designed to fire 20-millimeter rounds at a rate of 3,000 per minute to destroy any missile that comes within approximately one mile of the ship.

Built for the Navy by General Dynamics Corp. at Pomona, the Phalanx has been described by experts as the only system on the Stark capable of thwarting a close-in missile.

The Stark’s skipper, Capt. Glenn R. Brindel, has said he had the Phalanx system in a manual mode at the time of the attack and was unable to switch it to automatic in time to destroy the incoming missile.

Authoritative sources have said, however, that even in manual mode the system’s radar still should have sounded an alarm that a missile was approaching, giving sufficient time to fire the defensive guns.

Brindel said at a news conference that he kept the Stark’s Phalanx system in manual to make certain that it did not fire on friendly aircraft or other ships in the crowded gulf, but industry sources quoted by AP questioned this reasoning.

“Regardless of mode, you can program the system to look only for certain things--like something moving at the speed of a rocket,” the industry sources said, according to AP.