Governments worldwide are assessing the extent of the threat to civil airliners posed by manpads and the viability of introducing countermeasures
A threat to civil airliners from man portable air defence missiles (manpads) definitely exists. This obviously poses questions about how the threat is to be countered, but the first question that has to be answered is: what is the level of threat, and is it increasing?
The successful exercise by the US security services in providing an undercover agent as a customer for a manpad, then capturing the dealer who supplied an SA-18 missile that had been rendered harmless was just that: an exercise. All it proved is that if there is a customer, there will be a supplier. The result is scarcely a revelation in the world's primary capitalist state, and it has certainly not changed the global security situation in any way. For many years manpads have been in the hands of some who could be persuaded to sell them to anyone who offered the right price.
But there were two pieces of evidence last week that there may be an increase in the level of threat from manpads. British Airways decided to stop its services to Saudi Arabia after it was briefed by the UK Department for Transport that there is "credible intelligence of a serious threat to UK aviation interests in the area". This may be related to the increased unrest in Saudi Arabia manifested in clashes between the country's security services and activist members of radical Islamist groups, and to reports that al-Qaeda operatives were carrying out surveillance near Riyadh airport.
Meanwhile, in Israel, the country's prime minister Ariel Sharon has given the go-ahead to equip some of the nation's civil airliners with a missile countermeasures system that is known to be only partially effective against the infrared (IR) guidance systems of the more sophisticated manpads. Nevertheless, his intelligence services have briefed him that equipping fast with the existing flares system is vital, rather than waiting for a more effective jamming system now under development.
Israel has clear reasons for needing to take dramatic measures against possible manpad attacks on its civil aircraft, but its entire national fleet of airliners is only about 50, which is little more than a tenth of the number in the fleet of any one of the world's largest carriers. So, for Israel, the logistics of equipping its airliners with countermeasures are manageable, the costs are bearable, and the cost/risk analysis has been assessed as high enough to warrant the expenditure.
For other countries, even the USA and the UK, whose airlines are seen as facing a higher risk than, say, Sweden, the decision about whether to equip with countermeasures is much more difficult. There are only one or two off-the-shelf systems in existence for civil aircraft, and while these would work well against the older, simpler manpads, they offer only limited protection against the more sophisticated IR seekers. For the USA to follow the advice of Senator Barbara Boxer and Representative Steve Israel and mandate the fitting of countermeasures to much of the fleet would cost a massive sum, do little to reassure travellers, and simply force determined terrorists to go upmarket in their search for manpads.
It may seem churlish to be talking about countermeasures equipment prices when passengers' lives are at risk, but someone has to pay. In the USA, it is certain the government would pick up the tab. Directly across the Atlantic it is not at all certain that governments would do the same for airlines registered in European countries.
Meanwhile, back to the original question. What is the level of risk, and is it increasing? Looking at the statistics in recent years, the only manpad attack against civil airliners outside actual war zones has been the attack against the Arkia Boeing 757 taking off from Mombasa, Kenya in November last year. Two simple missiles were fired and they both failed to damage their target.
One event does not make a trend, and that is what makes decision-making so difficult. Does Mombasa alone represent a true picture of the level of risk despite the fact that there have been manpads on the black market for many years? If so, there is insufficient cause for across-the-board countermeasures installation, especially with equipment of limited capability. What is needed, as the US and Israeli governments have done, is to tell industry to get its thinking cap on and come up with a modern, effective, low-cost civil airliner countermeasures system.
The imperatives may all change if there is a single successful shoot-down. But governments will still look at whose aircraft was shot down and assess whether their own nation's aircraft are targets before equipping.
Source: Flight International
