JAMAIS

French Company Accused of Witholding Intel on ‘Kill Switch’ on Exocets That Killed 46 British in Falklands

A secret Exocet function allegedly kept French warcraft from being taken out by them—and British lawmakers want to know why its military didn’t know that during the Falklands War.

British lawmakers are seeking an inquiry into whether French missiles sold to Argentina and subsequently used against the British during the Falklands conflict in the 1980s contained secret “kill switches” that could have disabled the weapons. French-made Exocets led directly to the death of 46 British sailors in the Falklands war, and there have been persistent rumors over the years that the weapons were fitted with a kill switch, but that the information was withheld from the British on commercial grounds. The French weapons company behind the Exocet, Aerospatiale, has denied the kill switches existed, however British experts studying earlier iterations of the missiles are said to have concluded they were fitted with kill switches, which ostensibly could have been activated if the weapons fell into rogue actors’ hands. The Telegraph says that it has been told the Exocets did have the function, and Admiral Lord West, the former first sea lord who was active during the Falklands war, told the Telegraph: “I was told there was a mechanism within it so that foreign people couldn’t fire an Exocet at a French ship without them being able to do something to mean it wouldn’t be able to hit them. They were making a lot of sales of Exocet, and if the people they were selling them to found out that there was a way of defeating it, they would not have been happy.”