Oops! AP: Apache drops training missile over neighborhood

An AH-64 Apache helicopter accidentally dropped a training missile into a neighborhood in Killeen, Texas, according to an AP article published in the Washington Post:

About 100 homes in a neighborhood near Fort Hood were evacuated Tuesday night after a witness reported seeing something fall from the sky around 8 p.m., Killeen police spokeswoman Carroll Smith said. Residents were allowed back into their homes within an hour of the incident.

Ordnance technicians from the Army post examined the missile and determined it didn’t have a warhead or propulsion system, Fort Hood officials said. The training missile, which had implanted itself into the ground, was removed before midnight and left a hole in the ground several feet deep

Now, I once had an NCO who worked for me who was a Chinook crew chief, and he told a story about cutting sling load on a cow from about a thousand feet when they got a fire light during a flood evacuation.  (Mooooo! Splat!).   And we know the Air Force over time has accidentally lost everything from aircraft to include nuclear weapons -- but this is the first I've heard of a helicopter losing a weapon in a populated area -- even though it was just a training aid.