Navy Aborts Missile Test as Peace Activists Surround Submarine

Environmental activists sailed four ships into a test zone and hounded a nuclear submarine Friday in a tense game of cat-and-mouse on the high seas, successfully forcing the Navy to delay a Trident 2 missile launch, the Navy said.

“The planned Trident 2 D-5 test missile launch was terminated today because of intentional interference from foreign-flagged ships in a designated hazardous operation area,” a written statement from the Navy said.

The crews of two ships, one Dutch and the other Swedish, operated by the environmental group Greenpeace, along with a pair of motorized inflatable runabouts, hounded the Tennessee in international waters off Cape Canaveral throughout the day, at one point coming within 20 yards of the sub in a bid to board the vessel.

Late in the day, Greenpeace spokeswoman Shannon Fagan called the effort a success.

“We’re calling it a success in that we prevented the test today,” she said. “Obviously, we’d be happier if they scrapped the Trident 2 system. That’s our real goal.”

The Navy statement, issued aboard the Range Sentinel, a missile tracking ship, said the launch was canceled for safety reasons.

It said that notices “warning ships and aircraft away from the test area, as well as repeated on-scene warnings from the test ship participants, were acknowledged but ignored.

“When range safety could not be assured, the launch was terminated and will be rescheduled. The lost time involved significant cost to the American taxpayer.”

The first underwater launch of a three-stage, 126,000-pound Trident 2, the Navy’s deadliest strategic weapon, ended in a spectacular failure March 21 when a malfunction in the missile’s nozzle system sent the $26.5-million rocket cartwheeling out of control after launch from the Tennessee.

The unsuccessful launch attempt Friday would have been the second such underwater test firing. The Navy hopes to deploy operational Trident 2 missiles this winter.

Fagan said Greenpeace probably would not attempt to block the next launch attempt, saying: “I don’t know if we’ll be back; we can’t afford to be here every day. We’re just happy we prevented the test. We’ve raised public awareness to the fact that there’s an arms race at sea.”

Fagan said at one point during the daylong confrontation, a Navy “whale boat” rammed one of the organization’s two ships in a bid to block its progress or move it away from the submarine. The Navy refused to comment.

Earlier, the protesters were unsuccessful in an attempt to board the Ohio-class submarine before it plunged underwater, but they were able to plant a “Nuclear Free Sea” flag on a tall telemetry mast that remained above the water line.