By Thomas Withington
T SHOULD HAVE BEEN A ROUTINEdeparture from Moi International Airport in Mombasa,Kenya. But on November 28, 2002, an Israeli airliner came close to disaster. As the aircraft tookoff, passengers and crew heard a boom and saw two white vapor trails to the left of the plane. The ArkiaAirlines Boeing 757–300 narrowly escaped being shot down by two SA7 a.k.a. “Grail”) shoulder-launchedanti-aircraft missiles. These missile systems—Man-Portable Air Defense Systems, or Manpads—fire missiles designed to hit low-flying aircraft.Responsibility for the Mombasa attack was claimed by the shadowy “Government of Universal Palestinein Exile: The Army of Palestine.”However, security experts pointed their fingers at Al Qaeda, and at Afghanistan, where these weaponsare known to be in plentiful supply.The Arkia case is not isolated. TheInternational Civil Aviation Organizationreckons that 27 civilian fixedwingaircraft have been destroyed todate using shoulder-launched missiles.In one of the most notorious incidents,a Falcon-50 aircraft, carryingJuvenal Habyarimana, the presidentof Rwanda, and Cyprien Ntaryamira,the president of Burundi, wasdowned in April 1994. The eventhelped spark Rwanda’s bloody civilwar.Israeli intelligence sources have estimatedthat as many as 500,000Manpads have been built worldwide.It is impossible to gain an exact figureon how many are in service witharmed forces around the world, butthe armies of NATO, Russia, India,Pakistan, China, France, and Taiwanare all equipped with them.There are several reasons why terroristsare attracted to shoulderlaunchedmissiles. The U.S. RaytheonFIM-92A, or “Stinger,” can hit targetstraveling at altitudes of 3,000–26,000 feet. The Russian SA-7 canhit targets traveling at 1,600–16,000feet. And the missiles can be firedsome distance from the prying eyesof airport security staff. The attack inKenya was launched a thousandyards from the airport. Although the“best used before” dates on thesemissile systems are sometimes short(Stingers are thought to have a shelflife of 10 years due to the degradationof their propellant), technicallygifted terrorist organizations may beable to replace worn-out componentswith homemade parts.THE MOST FAMOUS SYSTEM, THE STINGer,was supplied to the Afghan Mujahideenby the CIA in the 1980s,following the Soviet invasion ofAfghanistan in 1979.It is difficult to know how manymissiles and launchers were suppliedto the guerrillas. Estimates range between400–900 missiles. When theCIA launched a scheme to buy backunused missiles after the Soviet withdrawalin 1989, the Mujahideenwere reluctant sellers. Although theagency offered $30,000 apiece, onlyabout 70 were returned. It is thoughtthat today around 100 Stingers remainin Afghanistan.In December 2002, troops fromthe International Security AssistanceForce (ISAF) were offered someStinger missiles by local arms dealersfor $250,000 each. And it is not justStingers that have turned up. A yearago, U.S. troops seized HN-5 missiles(a Chinese version of the SA-7).Osama bin Laden’s bodyguards arethought to surround him with a phalanxof such weapons, protectingtheir boss from air attack. In March2002, Abu Zubaydah, an allegedhigh-ranking Al Qaeda operative, reportedlyadmitted that his organizationhas such missiles. Questioning ofbin Laden’s alleged chief of
operaStions, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, following his arrest in Pakistan in March, may yield more information on the organization’s inventory.
The SA-7 or some variant is beingmade under license in countries likeChina, Egypt, North Korea, andYugoslavia. SA-7s can be bought for$5,000 per unit. The December 4,2002 Jane’s Defence Weekly estimated that “several thousand” arein circulation. SA-7s can be foundall over the world. Hizbollah is believedto have acquired some, andon May 8, 2001, Israeli authoritiesconfiscated four SA-7s being smuggled on the Lebanese-flagged ship Santorini. Hizbollah is also thought to have acquired Stingers from the Mujahideen, as well as some Chinese Qianwei/QW-1 AdvancedGuard missiles, the origins of whichare unknown.Shipments to terrorist groups takeplace in a murky underworld that isdifficult to penetrate, where transfersfall below the usual international accounting methods for state-to-statemilitary sales. For instance, SriLanka’s Tamil Tigers are thought tohave SA-7s, SA-14s, and ChineseHN-5/SA-7s. They may also have acquired Stingers from the GreekNovember 17 guerrilla movementand the Kurdish Worker’s Party.
SOME ATTACKS ARE FALSELY ATTRIBUTed to shoulder-launched missiles.Rocket-propelled grenades, with arange of 984 feet (300 meters) can dojust as much damage to low-flyingaircraft—witness the destruction of aU.S. Black Hawk helicopter in Somaliain October 1993. But incidents involving those weapons are often reported as Manpads attacks, makingit difficult to verify exactly how oftenthe latter are used. And the proliferation of shoulderlaunched missiles may not be as dire as it appears. It’s not easy to use one of these missiles to down a civilian airliner. Although they are often called “fire and forget” weapons—one points at the target, pulls thetrigger, and the missile does therest—the reality is more complex.Chris Bishop, a military expert andwriter, points out that with theBritish “Blowpipe,” the operatormust continue to track the targetwhile directing the rocket.
Although more modern weaponshave infrared “seekers” to track theaircraft, Bishop argues that they arealso “difficult to use, and few terroristshave sufficient training.” The CIA is thought to have experienced considerable problems in teachingthe Afghan Mujahideen—many ofwhom were illiterate—to use theStinger. Moreover, the operator musttake ground clutter into account.“You mustn’t fire too close to theground, in case the missile gets seduced away by the sun or groundheat,” says Bishop. During the warin Afghanistan, heat-seeking SA-7s,also covertly supplied to the Mujahideen by the United States viaEgypt, had a habit of flying towardthe sun rather than toward the target’sexhaust.
THE SPEED OF AN AIRLINER DURINGtakeoff limits the operator’s opportunities. Or as one aviation expert says, “These missiles tend to be a one-shot thing.” Even if the missile hits an engine, there is no guarantee that the airliner will be destroyed: “You’d need a lucky shot that hit an enginehand then caused a big fire.” Themodernization, “high-bypass” engines fitted on airliners produce less heat than those on military aircraft, and the missiles tend to be tuned to the heat signatures of high-temperature military engines.
The steps airlines can take to minimize the risk are limited. An airlinepilot cannot make the tight twistsand turns to evade a missile that areroutine for more agile fighter aircraft.Even if an airliner were fitted with high-temperature flares to fool a heat-seeking missile, the crew wouldneed to know that they were underattack before launching the flares. Amissile-warning system could be installed in the cockpit, but that couldbe expensive.Another option might be to installthe electronic countermeasures thatmilitary aircraft use to confuse incoming missiles. The Matador system is fitted to some business jets and VIP airliners, but at $5.5 million per set, the equipment is not cheap. For example, it would cost British Airways $1.75 billion to fit the systemacross its entire fleet.
The International Air Transport Association regards such costs as prohibitive. The U.S. Air Transport Association has commented that installation would be possible, but only if the taxpayer foots the bill.In December 2002, in the wake ofthe Mombasa attack, Israeli DefenseMinister Shaul Mofaz recommendedallocating $40 million to equip Israeliairliners with missile-defense systems.Two Israeli firms, Rafael and Elta,are planning to develop a system forcivilian aircraft at an estimated costof $1.5 million per unit. There hasbeen speculation for some time thatsome Israeli airliners may already befitted with such a system.
The costs of hardening airlinersagainst shoulder-launched missilescould be prohibitively expensive formost airlines, and any recommendation will have to be added to a long list of other security enhancements recommended since the 9/11 attacks, such as armored cockpit doors and improved airport security. As for what enhancements should take priority, there have been fewer than 30 missile incidents involving civilian aircraft, but 1,014 attempted airliner hijackings since 1947. And while uncertaintypersists over the threat, it may be difficult for governments toforce a more proactive approach tothe problem.Thomas Withington is an independentdefense analyst and a research associate at the Centre for Defence Studies at King’s College London.
May/June 2003 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 17