LMT Lockheed Martin Corp

By Gordon Lubold and Devlin Barrett 

WASHINGTON--An inert Hellfire missile mistakenly sent to Cuba in 2014 after a training exercise has been located and returned to the U.S., State Department officials said on Saturday, ending a saga that had put at risk sensitive technology and caused diplomatic strains.

The training missile had been rerouted in Germany and put on a plane to Cuba, where it had remained for more than a year as U.S. diplomatic officials scrambled to get it back.

The loss of the missile was embarrassing to the U.S. in part because the weapon could have been provided to an adversary and exploited for its sensitive technology. It remained a sticking point as diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba dramatically thawed over the last year.

A plane carrying the missile arrived in Orlando, Fla., early on Saturday, where it will finally be returned to a warehouse that holds a large stock of Hellfire missiles for Lockheed Martin Corp., the missile's manufacturer, U.S. officials said.

"We can say without speaking to specifics that the inert training missile has been returned with the cooperation of the Cuban government," said State Department spokesman Mark Toner in a written statement, adding: "the re-establishment of diplomatic relations and the reopening of our embassy in Havana allow us to engage with the Cuban government on issues of mutual interest."

Mr. Toner provided few further details about how the missile ended up in Cuba, citing federal law. Under those rules, the government is barred from discussing the details of defense trade licensing and compliance issues.

The Cuban government issued a statement in Spanish on Saturday saying its Customs officials had seized "a rocket with a laser-guided Hellfire AGM 114 warhead." The statement said the missile apparently arrived in Havana by mistake and that Cuba had previously "communicated its intention of returning it." The U.S. government and Lockheed Martin sent a team of experts to inspect and take back the missile, the statement said, adding: "Cuba acted with seriousness and transparency, and cooperated to find a satisfactory solution to this event."

A spokeswoman for Lockheed Martin referred queries to the State Department. A spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is investigating the matter, similarly referred queries.

A Hellfire is an air-to-ground missile often fired from helicopters. It was first designed, more than 30 years ago, as an antitank weapon. Since modernized, it is a cornerstone of the U.S. counterterrorism arsenal, often fired from drones to carry out attacks in Yemen, Pakistan and elsewhere. The missing missile did not contain explosives, but still amounted to a treasure trove of sensitive technology if it were to fall into the wrong hands.

The missing Hellfire was used in a North Atlantic Treaty Organization military exercise in 2014 but was wrongly routed onto an Air France flight that took it to Cuba. Officials there removed the missile and held it with no public explanation. A federal investigation is under way to determine if the missile was intentionally mishandled or if it was simply the result of a series of blunders. The missile's loss was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The tale of the missing missile began at the Orlando International Airport in early 2014, where it was prepared to be used in a NATO exercise in Spain, according to U.S. officials. The crate in which the 100-pound, 5-foot missile was shipped was clearly marked as containing material subject to rigorous export controls and officials said anyone handling the crate would know it was not regular cargo.

After the exercise the missile was repacked and, for reasons that remain unclear, the missile began a circuitous trip through Europe. First, it was loaded onto a truck belonging to a freight-shipping firm in Rota, Spain, and sent to Germany, according to officials familiar with the case.

That firm released the cargo to yet another shipping firm, which was supposed to put it on a flight from Madrid to Frankfurt before it would travel, on another flight, to Florida. Instead, officials loading the first flight realized the special cargo wasn't there. Officials realized it had been loaded onto a truck operated by Air France and was heading for Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris.

There, it was loaded onto a pallet of cargo and placed onto an Air France flight. By the time the error or errors were discovered, the plane was on that flight and headed to Havana.

Write to Gordon Lubold at Gordon.Lubold@wsj.com and Devlin Barrett at devlin.barrett@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 13, 2016 18:52 ET (23:52 GMT)

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