Polish F-16 Fires Missile at House While Aiming for Russian Drone

An AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile fired by a Polish F-16 fighter aircraft hit a residential building on September 10 while trying to targeta Russian drone over eastern Poland.

The accident happened in the Wyryki-Wola village, Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita reported. The 160-kg missile hit the building, damaging part of the roof and breaking through the ceiling. There were no reports of casualties.

"It was an AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile from our F-16, which experienced a guidance system failure during the flight and did not find the target. Fortunately, it did not explode because the detonator fuses were triggered," a source was quoted as saying by the publication.

The missile was launched during an operation to down Russian drones that had invaded Polish airspace. Dutch F-35s as well as Polish F-16s were engaged in the mission, and drone wreckage was subsequently discovered by residents.

Rzeczpospolita blamed the Lublin prosecutor's office for covering up facts, pointing out that the officials first reported that the strike was damage inflicted by an "unidentified flying object." The prosecutor's office verified that 17 Russian drone debris had been found but would not comment on the Wyryki attack, saying only: "At this time, the object has not been identified as a drone or its fragments.”

The AIM-120 missile has a flight range of more than 120 km and is launched at a distance. If a target goes off radar, the missile still heads toward the last position it was tracked until fuel is depleted or the onboard system self-destructs. In the Polish incident, the self-destruct system may have malfunctioned, causing the missile to hit the house by kinetic force instead of explosion.

A similar incident was recently reported in Ukraine, where a fighter jet aircraft munition hit a residence in the Volyn region.