KAREN WALKER / WASHINGTON DC
Silence surrounds cost issue, while White House says threat to US airlines is remote.
A US government task force is looking at how airliners might be protected from potential surface-to-air missile (SAM) attacks, but the issue of costs is drawing a curtain of silence around the subject.
Since the November 2002 incident in Mombasa, Kenya, in which two SAMs were fired at a Boeing 757 belonging to Israeli carrier Arkia, narrowly missing the aircraft, there has been debate about whether US airlines are under threat from similar terrorist attacks. The US government and airline industry have been mostly silent on the subject. Although the White House stresses the need for secrecy and describes the threat as "remote", the larger concern is the massive cost of equipping airliners with devices such as infrared countermeasure systems - perhaps as much as $1 million for each aircraft.
The White House has confirmed that an interagency task force has been created to look into the issue. The task force, which reports to the US National Security Council, is looking at how to improve security at airports and on aircraft, as well as how to find stored portable missiles.
"There are many different ways to provide increased protection to the travelling public from the remote possibility of this threat. Those are all being discussed," says the White House.
The US Air Transport Association (ATA), which lobbies on behalf of the major carriers, refuses to acknowledge the existence of the task force, but makes clear the responsibility for addressing the threat and paying for it lies with the government. "Protecting against threats of this type is the responsibility of the federal government," says the ATA, "Therefore, any technology decisions will be made by government, not the airlines."
Source: Flight International
