In an airplane hangar north of Fort Worth, Texas, technicians are preparing to mount a fire-hydrant-shaped device onto the belly of an American Airlines Boeing 767. It is an effort that could soon turn into a more than $10 billion project to install a high-tech missile defense system on the nation’s commercial planes.
The Boeing 767 – the same type of plane that terrorists flew into the World Trade Center – is one of three planes that by the end of this year will be used to test the infrared laser-based systems designed to find and disable shoulder-fired missiles.
The missiles have long been popular among terrorists and rebel groups in war zones around the world; the concern is that they could become a domestic threat.
The tests are being financed by the Department of Homeland Security, which has been directed by Congress to move rapidly to take technology designed for military aircraft and adapt it so it can protect the nation’s 6,800 commercial jets. It has so far invested $120 million in the testing effort, which is expected to last through next year.
Yet even before the tests begin, some members of Congress, and several prominent aviation and terrorism experts, are questioning whether the rush to deploy this expensive new antiterrorism system makes sense.
No credible evidence yet
Homeland Security officials have repeatedly cautioned that no credible evidence exists of a planned missile attack in the United States.
But there is near unanimity among national security experts and lawmakers that because of the relatively low price and small size of the missiles – the most popular of which are U.S.-made Stingers and Soviet-made SA-7s – and the large number of them available on the black market, they represent a legitimate domestic threat.
The concern is not just for the lives that would be lost in the downing of a single plane, proponents say.
It is for the enormous economic consequences that would result if the public were to lose confidence in flying.
“We are long overdue for a passenger aircraft to be taken down by a shoulder-launched missile,” said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., who is pushing for the systems to be installed. “We have been extremely, extremely lucky.”
But a significant contingent of domestic security experts, citing the broad range of ways that terrorists might strike next and noting studies that show that shoulder-fired missiles present less of a threat at airports than do truck bombs or luggage bombs, say the administration’s focus on these missiles may be misdirected.
“People have probably assumed that these kinds of weapons would work with much greater certainty,” said K. Jack Riley, the director of the public safety and justice program at the Rand Corp., a nonprofit research organization that has studied threats from shoulder-mounted missiles. “This is not as big a threat as people might think.”
Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems are competing to build the devices, which rely on plane-mounted sensors that detect heat-seeking missiles and then automatically fire infrared lasers to jam or confuse the missiles’ guidance systems.
The defense would be used for about a 50-mile area around airports, while planes land or take off.
The American Airlines Boeing 767 and two jets owned by Northwest Airlines and FedEx will be tested to determine whether they remain as airworthy with the new technology aboard and to figure out if, in simulated attacks, the defense system is reliable.
For now, no passengers will be aboard.
Missiles a rebel favorite
Shoulder-fired missiles were introduced by the Americans and the Soviets in the 1960s to protect ground forces.
A recent congressional study found that more than 350,000 exist in the arsenals of governments worldwide.
But they also are a favorite of rebel groups and terrorists. At about 6 feet long and 50 pounds, they are easy to transport, and older models can cost only a few hundred dollars.
Calls for putting the defense systems on commercial planes took on new urgency in 2002.
That year, two missiles were fired at a Boeing 757 in Kenya that had been chartered by an Israeli airline.
Both missed.
“The cost versus the benefit here does not play out,” said Jim Proulx, a spokesman for Boeing. The presumption is that the government would pay to install the systems on existing planes, but the airlines would assume the ongoing maintenance and fuel costs, which could exceed $1 million a year per plane.