MANPADS - Surface to Air Missiles

“One of the most serious threats to aviation today”:

Colin Powell, former Secretary of State, USA

By Per Gram

I wrote the report below in 2005. Apart from various remedies to counter MAPADS attacks to aircraft, little has been heard of on the subject, until now. “Advanced Russian made, man-portable anti-aircraft missiles keep finding their way into the hands of stateless insurgents and terrorists,” says a note in AW&ST of January 18, 2010. It also explains that the variants SA-16 Gimlet, SA-18 Grouse and SA-24 Grinch are on the loose as well. This simply means that the report should be read as if it was written today, in January 2010.

The DHL pilots took off from Baghdad International Airport on November 22. 2003 bound for Bahrain. Their departure procedure included a steeper than normal climb at relatively low speed in order to avoid possible MANPADS missiles launched by Iraqi insurgents. These rebels were actually video filming them taking off and what were to follow. Passing trough 8.000 feet the SA-7 missile hit their left wing and ignited fuel in the full outboard fuel tank. The ensuing fire burnt through the rear spar and the left outboard flap tore loose. The fire precipitated a complete loss of all three hydraulic systems, leaving the crew without control of aileron, elevator or rudder. Only the engines could be used in controlling the aircraft. The captain experimented by using differential trust to control pitch and yaw. He circled twice while the other two crewmembers extended the gear manually. The wing kept on burning. The captain aligned them on a 20 mile final slowing to 180 kts just prior to touch down. They were still being filmed while departing the runway they landed on, passing through a razor-wire fence, plowing through soft sand and coming to rest after a wild ride of 2.000 feet, a nightmare ending, amazingly, without casualties but with plenty of reasons to look closer at what downed them.

Afghan MANPADS

After the Bush administrations` attack on Islam, which is the way many Muslims have chosen to look at the invasion of Iraq, there are several reasons to look closer at MANPADS, Man-Portable Air Defence Systems. These are light missiles which were distributed by the thousands by the CIA to the Mujahideen guerrillas in Afghanistan and assisted in ousting the Soviets from their country from 1979 onwards until the last Soviet soldier left in 1989. The breakdown of the Soviet Union also left a lot of missiles of the type SA-7 Strela 2 on the illegal weapons market. Common for these missiles apart from their lethality, is that they are easy to conceal, transport and operate.

SA-7

Fantasy as an asset
The families to those who perished in the 9.11. attack managed, although meeting fierce opposition from The White House, to put pressure on the US authorities to look closer at who held the responsibility which made such an attack possible. The findings were published in the 567 pages so called Kean-report to the US Congress of this summer. The report criticize the 15 US intelligence agencies for being unable to use information available to them in an imaginable and coordinated sense thereby overlooking the possibilities and options the terrorist had. So, imagination is an important factor in fighting terrorism. During my time piloting an intelligence gathering P-3B in the Barents Sea during the early seventies, I fantasized about Russian subs` SAM capability. They could elevate a launcher from their conning tower while being at periscope depth, and shoot me down during the last stages of my preparations for a simulated attack, I thought. We never saw my predictions come true but I sure had and perhaps still have a childs` imagination.

The threat picture
As this is being written, I hear in the news that the alert status for CONUS, the continental USA, is raised to the third highest status of orange. Red is next and is the highest status before alarm which de facto means that the country is under attack. The reason is said to be information made available by Pakistani sources after the arrest of a data specialist in July, on whos PC there were information that al-Qaeda are planning an onslaught on American economy by attacking important institutions like the New York Stock Exchange. Have anybody had enough fantasy to predict this? Indeed, in Dan Brown`s (the author of The Da Vinci Code) book Digital Fortress of 1998 terrorists plan an attack on the NY Stock Exchange in order to hurt US economy. The question will then be if the new czar and coordinator of US intelligence will be a Dan Brown?

US Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in December 2003. He spoke on the proliferation of MANPADS and said: ”There is no threat more serious to aviation than man-portable air defence systems”. According to the reliable Janes Information Group it is clear that al-Qaeda has access to a large number of MANPADS. Bin Laden himself is protected by bodyguards outfitted with MANPADS in order to fend off attacks by counter insurgency helicopters like ”Hind”, ”Cobra” and ”Apache”. Janes look at al-Qaeda as a serious treat to civil aviation, and Bin Laden is still on the loose. There is an estimated 27 terrorist organisations believed to have MANPADS in their inventories. At least 500 missiles are unaccounted for after Operation Enduring Freedom. It is generally believed that there are several thousand on the market after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Reported non-state use of MANPADS: 1996-2003

Date Non-State Group Missile Type Killed/

injured Aircraft Notes

23. March -07, Somali insurgents, Il 76
*22. Nov. -03 Iraqi insurgents SA-7 0/0 A300B4-200 The DHL-aircraft was hit after take off from Baghdad Intl. Airport
6. Sept. -03 Iraqi insurgents SA-7 0/0 C-17 Globemaster Two missiles fired during take off from Baghdad Intl. Airport. Both miss.
28. Nov. -02 Al- Qaeda SA-7 0/0 Arkia Airlines Boeing 757 Two missiles passed near the Israeli aircraft just after take off from Mombasa
23. Oct. -00 LTTE Stinger 4/0 Mi-24 ”Hind” Shot down near Trincomalee harbour
4. Oct. -00 Chechen rebels Stinger 1/0 Su-24M ”Hind” Shot down near Urus-Martan
4. Oct. -00 Chechen rebels Stinger Unknown Su-25 Shot down on recce. mission
10. Aug. -00 LTTE Ukjent 0/0 Fighter aircraft State aircraft shot at
25.-30. Aug. -00 Chechen rebels SA-7 0/0 Unreported Federal helicopters fired on. All missiles miss
7. May -00 Chechen rebels Unknown 2/0 Su-24MR Shot down in the southern Chechnya
31. March -00 LTTE Unknown 40/0 An-26 Transport downed, possibly by MANPADS
10. Nov. -99 FARC Unreported 5/0 DC-3 FARC mistakenly downs civilian craft, press says
4. April –99 Hizbolla SA-7 0/0 F-16`s Two missiles fired on Israeli F-16`s. Both miss
6. March -99 PKK Unknown 20/0 Puma helicopter Shot down in southern Turkey
2. Jan. -99 UNITA Unknown 14/0 C-130 UN plane shot down in central Angola
26.Dec. -98 UNITA Unknown 9/0 C-130 UN-chartered plane shot down in central Angola
15. Dec. -98 UNITA Unknown 10/0 An-12 Shot down enroute to Luanda
10. Oct. -98 Tutsi rebels Possible
SA-7 40/0 Boeing 727 Aircraft struck over DR of Congo
13. Aug. -98 LTTE Unknown 0/0 Kfir rekognoseringsfly Missiles fired by rebels. No damage
1. Dec. -97 KLA Strela 2M 5/0 Yugoslav Air Transport Serb reports KLA shootdown of craft near Pristina
7. Oct. -97 LTTE Unknown 0/0 Mi-17 transports Missiles reportedly fired from Tamil rebell boats
10. Nov. –97 LTTE Unknown 2/2 Mi-17 transports and Mi-24 ”Hind” Missiles fired at ”helicopter convoy”
20. Aug. -97 LTTE Stinger 0/0 Kfir fighters Miss over Puliyankulam
18. May -97 PKK SA-7 2/0 Super Cobra Skutt ned under operasjoner i Irak
May -97 PKK SA-7 11/0 Cougar transport Shot down during operations in Iraq
22. Jan. -96 LTTE Unknown 39/0 Mi-17 Unconfirmed MANPADS
30. April -96 LTTE Unknown 94/0 Unknown Two Air Force transports downed
April. -96 Hizbulla Unknown 0/0 UAV Unconfirmed MANPADS


*The DHL story deserves more publicity. The crew`s actions are comparable to those by Capt. Al Hayne`s crew and their much publicised crash landing in Sioux City, also without hydraulics, in 1989.

There is also reason to remind the reader about two shoot downs of American “Blackhawk” helicopters in Somalia in 1993. The rebels used traditional RPG`s, Rocket Propelled Grenades. Several guerrilla/terrorist organisations are known to have specialised in the use of RPG`s in the SAM role against counter insurgency aircraft flying below 1000`. Never the less, the most infamous shoot downs by MANPADS are the two Vickers Viscounts operated by Air Rhodesia which in 1978 and 1979 were shot down by rebels and more than 100 people perished. In one of the cases survivors were massacred by rebels while still in their seats in the wreckage. The remaining Viscounts were outfitted with exhaust deflectors.

Fantasy at work
As mentioned earlier, official agencies may be criticized for not having a working imagination while having several parts of the puzzle on the table. I am in no position to possess any information of interest to intelligence agencies, but I have a pretty good imagination. If one wish to hurt American economy and at the same time make things difficult for the at any time residing President, just see to that the price for a gallon of gasoline is doubled over night. Just shoot down a helicopter, i.e. a Super Puma MkII flying for Exxon in Angola. As you can see from the table above, UNITA have had missiles, and there still may be some in Angola. The lifetime of the missiles in question are as long as 22 years if in their original canisters and the sealing is intact. A flat battery may be exchanged for a new one bought in the shop on the corner. There is a lot of petroleum industry in Angola and Western Africa, which also lead Colin Powell and other US dignitaries to visit several of these countries recently. A shoot down of a helicopter carrying personnel for the offshore industry may have consequences for other similar industry elsewhere in the world. A missile may be bought for as little as US$5.000 on the illegal market. The missile itself and the launching tube may pass as parts for the oil industry, simply because very few people know what they look like. Carried apart they may seem fairly inconspicuous and may be put in a golf bag.

Countermeasures
For every measure there is a countermeasure, and for every countermeasure, there will eventually be a counter countermeasure.

USA`s Aviation Sub-committee have passed a bill to the Congress` House of Representatives where one recommend that the Federal Aviation Agency as soon as possible certify an anti-missile system and at the same time ask for funding which may stop the proliferation of MANPADS. This means that such countermeasure systems may be a requirement for civilian US registered aircraft and that the USA will purchase missiles from the illegal market and destroy them. If 6.800 American aircraft should be equipped with i.e. the Northrop Grumman`s Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasures, LAIRCM, this will cost near US$ 7 billion and take about 6 years to achieve. The sources vary in their estimate on the cost but the highest estimate is US$20 billion. If the rest of the world should follow suit, it will take at least a decade. Civilian aircraft will be prone to this threat into the foreseeable future. The new giant Airbus A380 will be a prime target for terrorists. This aircraft should therefore have LAIRCM or similar as standard equipment. The Israelis, British and French are also working on countermeasures.

US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have received US$ 100 million to adapt military anti-missile technology for civilian use and is also tasked with looking at the cost effectiveness of such an investment. Russias newest missile the SA-16 Igla 1, NATO code named Gimlet, has features where its seeker may change its parameters depending on the anticipated countermeasures. The SA-18 Grouse has re-programmable protection against electro-optical jammers. In other words, it has a true counter countermeasures capability.
International cooperation
The Wassenaar Arrangement is a group consisting of most of the world`s major arms exporters, 33 countries to be exact. The group will, after its meeting in Slovakia Dec. 1, 2000, do their best in fighting the proliferation of MANPADS. The G-8 discussed the subject in 2003 and agreed on strengthening the Wassenaar agreement with four additional recommendations, amongst others to participate actively in the collection and destruction of such weapons.

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Sources apart from own fantasy
Aerospace Testing Intl. June 2004
Airways – Dec. 2003
Aviation Intl. News – Feb. 2004
AW & ST – August 18, 2003
AW & ST – Sept. 29, 2003
AW & ST – Dec. 1, 2003
AW & ST – Dec. 8, 2003
AW & ST - Feb. 2, 2004
AW & ST – Jan. 18, 2010
Flight International - 6 Oct. 2003
International Herald Tribune – March 31, 2003
Le Monde Diplomatique – July 2004
Professional Pilot – April 2003
Professional Pilot – October 2003
The Times – August 5, 2004
Time Magazine European Edition – Aug. 2, 2004
www.fas.org/asmp/campaigns/MANPADS/MANPADS.html
www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jir021128_1_n.shtml
www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jtic030813_1_n.shtml
www.basicint.org/WT/armsexp/MANPADS.htm
www.trltd.com/trintel/trintel_mitigating_the_threat_from_manpads.php
www.globalsecurity.org/military/intro/manpads.htm