Polish military searches for a lost missile fuse

The General Command of Polish Armed Forces issued a statement on Thursday morning. "On Tuesday, after the end of reconnaissance flights, one of the helicopters carrying out a patrol mission in the border area was found missing a fuse in one of the missiles," the command said.

Furthermore, the statement added, "the flight took place along the border strip and not above any built-up area".

"As the search for the device has not been effective so far, we inform that the detonator has in-built safety features and does not pose danger to the surroundings. Nevertheless, in case of finding it, we ask to mark the location where it was found and notify the nearest military of police station," we read.

The military assured the search for the fuse will continue, adding that "situations like this do happen, just like in Afghanistan, where there were cases of missing equipment items after combat flights".

The General Command of Polish Armed Forces spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Marek Pawlak told TVN24 the aircraft in question is Mi-24 from the 1st Aviation Brigade, which had been carrying a mission in the area of Białowieża Forest. The spokesman added the fuse itself is approx. 11 centimeters long and comes from an S-5 unguided missile.

Polish Navy Reserve Commander Maksymilian Dura, a Defence24 portal expert, spoke about the missing fuse in TVN24.

"This doesn't happen too often, because it's not that simple. It's not that such fuses are attached, they are screwed in," he said. "This is obviously an unusual situation. Of course various vibrations can occur during a flight, but these fuses should be fixed to the missiles in such a way that they don't unscrew during the flight. They did unscrew, apparently something happened, some kind of damage, it's hard to say what happened," he added.

Dura also said that "these unguided missiles, that Polish helicopters are fitted with, are quite old". "Some kind of damage could have happened or an oversight by the technicians. All explanations are feasible, so everything has to checked, in order to prevent such incidents from occurring, as they are dangerous," he told TVN24.

In his view, "saying that it isn't dangerous is quite strange, because the role of this fuse, the role of this triggering element is precisely to be dangerous".

Commander Dura advised how to behave when coming across the fuse. "Do not aprroach it, do not touch it, because it might have been damaged when it hit the ground. It's best to call 112, notify proper authorites, and they will handle it from there."