On Tuesday afternoon, near Otepää, during the NATO exercises in Estonia, the Spanish fighter Eurofighter accidentally launched an air to air missile in the north-west direction.

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At the moment, the supposed place of the hit of the missile is being located. The personal stories of eyewitnesses hurrying to share their thoughts only further confuse the situation … Toomas living in Tartu, said that he heard the explosion at about 3 pm.  “A bit later there was a strong clapping sound, I looked that maybe something had flown up in the air, it was quite strong, you could even feel the shock wave,” the man said. He claimed that he heard a sound much earlier than the time announced by  Defense Force, somewhere around 12:30.

Other readers said that they heard the sound around 15:45. A resident of the village of Mullavere said that the noise of fighters from Tartu was heard from the very morning. “This clap, which was different from the airplane noise, occurred (at the same time as the noise of the aircraft) 2-3 minutes before 15:45. After the clap, I immediately went into the house and opened the computer, looking at the recorded time.” The clap was not very strong ” , – he said.

A spokesman for the Liunas rescue center said that between 12:30 and 13:30 no explosions had been recorded by them and acknowledged that the missile had led to a serious mess. Press Secretary of the Defense Force Ivo Vahemets could not comment on the difference in the statements of eyewitnesses.

As the member of the board of the Estonian Air Navigation Service, Yullar Salumae, said, the erroneous missile launch took place at 15:44, and the dispatchers were informed about it at about six in the evening. Salumäe confirmed that there were no passenger planes in the launch zone of the missile, and noted that fighter planes usually flew lower than passenger planes. “The fighter was in the training zone, so it did not cause danger for passenger planes,” he said.

According to the Minister of Defense of Estonia, Jüri Luik, the flights of Spanish fighters in Estonia are temporarily suspended until all circumstances of the incident are established, and the Portuguese plaanes will guard the country’s airspace.

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