The Nation - News from March 31, 1989

The Navy believes a Trident 2 missile that failed during a launch attempt last week suffered a mechanical failure in the first-stage nozzle mechanism, the Pentagon said. Dan Howard, the Defense Department’s chief spokesman, said the Navy had managed to recover some parts of the missile from the ocean floor off Cape Canaveral, Fla., and to analyze more of the radio telemetry data from the launch. “They have determined from the telemetry at this point that the difficulty was not with the guidance system or any of the electrical systems,” Howard said. “The most likely suspect is a mechanical failure in the nozzle mechanism.”