Oops!... Navy ship accidentally fires on Polish port

From Navy Times, October 30, 2009

Destroyer accidentally fires on Polish port

By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Oct 30, 2009 5:41:55 EDT

A U.S. destroyer accidentally fired three machine gun rounds at a Polish city while it lay at anchor Wednesday, but caused no injuries and no damage, a Pentagon official said.

The crew of the destroyer Ramage was doing “routine maintenance” to the ship in the port of Gdynia when a sailor inadvertently fired the burst from one of the warship’s M240 machine guns, the official said.

According to an English-language Polish news site, the shooting took place at 10:40 a.m. local time Wednesday and the rounds from the ship hit a warehouse. The English-language news site Russia Today carried the headline, “U.S. destroyer shells Polish shore.”

American sailors cooperated with the Polish police investigation into the shooting, and then Ramage sailed from Gdynia later the same day, according to its original schedule. The ship did not hasten its departure because of the shooting, said the Pentagon official, who was not authorized to discuss the story and asked not to be identified.

The Norfolk, Va.-based Ramage was visiting Gdynia after wrapping up its participation in the international naval exercise, Joint Warrior, in which U.S. warships trained with ships from the navies of Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Great Britain, Norway and Turkey.