Posted on 09/11/2009 7:49:08 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Our sky's the limit
Sep. 10, 2009
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST
The sirens blare throughout the base. Within seconds, four airmen - two pilots and two navigators - jump out of an office, scoop up their helmets hanging on a hook nearby and skip down a few stairs and into a waiting car which drives them down a short road to a nearby hangar.
A minute later, they are aboard their two-seater F-16s, have switched on the ignitions and begin making their way to the base's main runway. A minute later they are already in the air.
This routine takes place at least once a day at squadron headquarters in the IAF's Ramat David Base near Afula, the largest air force base in the North. Sometimes the pair of planes are ordered to sit on the runway but not take off, as air traffic control waits to see what is happening up above.
The scenarios vary. One time it is a civilian passenger plane approaching from the Mediterranean Sea that has failed to heed air traffic control communications. Another time it is an outdated Syrian MiG fighter conducting maneuvers close to the border on the Golan Heights. Another time, it is a Cessna light aircraft flying in southern Lebanon that suddenly turns on a course toward Nahariya.
Eight years after the al-Qaida attacks against the US during which four hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvanian forest, Israel is still on high alert out of fear that terrorists are planning such an attack against Tel Aviv.
The concern is understandable. As a small country, the IAF cannot take any chances when suspicious aircraft are on course to Israel, especially considering that some of its most sensitive energy and military installations - in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Ashkelon - line the coast.
To prepare for this threat, in 2002 the IAF launched a special workshop for all fighter squadrons to learn what to do in the event that a suspicious aircraft is making its way toward the shore. The last workshop was held over the summer and The Jerusalem Post was given an exclusive look into the way the IAF is preparing for a potential 9/11.
Concern that such an attack my be in the planning stems from several sources, including intelligence, but mainly due to the fact that such attacks have already been carried out. "The enemy is smart and we assume that it is adapting just like we are," explains a senior IAF officer.
SEPTEMBER 11-LIKE attacks have not taken place here, but intelligence fears that some have been planned. One example was the visit here in May 2000 by Richard Reid, more infamously known as the Shoe Bomber.
Reid also visited the Gaza Strip where he spent time in the Jabalya refugee camp home of Nabil Ukal, who had been recruited two years earlier by al-Qaida during religious instruction he was undergoing in Pakistan.
Reid's visit did not alarm intelligence at the time, but only 18 months later when he tried lighting a fuse connected to explosives that were hidden in his shoe on a flight from Paris to Miami.
The threat scenarios played out during the workshop, hosted this year by Squadron 109, ranged from the infiltration of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) - like Hizbullah did during the Second Lebanon War - to a foreign airliner that fails to respond to air traffic control hails as it crosses the 200 mile mark off the western coastline. The possibility of a 9/11-style attack against the Azrieli Towers in Tel Aviv or the Kirya military headquarters nearby was also taken into consideration.
Intelligence services are so nervous of this possibility that Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) agents are covertly positioned on most of the planes that fly into Ben-Gurion Airport. There is also the possibility of paragliders. In November 1987, a terrorist from Ahmed Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, paraglided into the country near Kiryat Shmona, infiltrated an IDF base and killed six soldiers.
In a similar hang-glider incursion in 1981, a terrorist landed in the North and seized a civilian hostage. He was captured after he fell asleep, allowing his hostage to escape. Also in 1981, a squad of guerrillas flew a hot air balloon from southern Lebanon into the country, but it was shot down and all were killed.
"THESE ARE all complicated scenarios that do not have simple solutions," explains Lt.-Col. Avshalom, commander of Squadron 109.
While the media don't always report these incidents, they occur almost daily. It could be a civilian airliner that fails to respond to air traffic control calls as it enters the 200-mile mark off the coast and raises fears of a 9/11-type attack on the Azrieli Towers. It could be a Syrian military jet that is training just north of the Golan Heights and suddenly appears to be moving toward the border.
The modus operandi for dealing with these events varies, but in general, approval for shooting down a civilian airliner needs to come from the prime minister, defense minister, chief of General Staff and IAF commander.
In April 2007, for example, prime minister Ehud Olmert, defense minister Amir Peretz, Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi and OC Air Force Elazar Shkedy were all placed on-line after a Continental Airlines plane failed to make contact with air traffic control as it approached the country's airspace. It responded to calls at the last minute.
In that incident, the pilot contacted Ben-Gurion air traffic control from a distance of some 325 km. but then contact was lost. Once the plane reached about 68-km. from Israel - a five-minute flight to Tel Aviv - the IAF dispatched fighters to inspect the aircraft and ensure that it had not been taken over by terrorists.
Top IAF officers said it was the closest the air force had ever come to intercepting a civilian passenger plane, except for the February 1973 shooting down of a Libyan airliner which flew over the Israeli-controlled Sinai after a large sandstorm forcing the crew to rely on instrument navigation. It then failed to heed attempts at communication.
Israel was at the time on high alert due to concerns that Black September was planning to crash an explosives-laden plane into Tel Aviv.
Two F-4 Phantoms were dispatched from the Refidim Base in Sinai to inspect the plane. The pilots signaled to it with their wings to follow them back to base, but the Libyan airliner turned around, appearing to the IAF as if it was fleeing. When the pilot refused orders to land, the Phantoms opened fire and the plane crashed in flames in the desert, killing 108 people. Passengers included Egyptians, Libyans, French and Germans.
ANOTHER INCIDENT took place in May 2001. The IDF was already on high alert due to increasingly hostile rhetoric by Hizbullah officials in Beirut when a Lebanese flight student stole a plane when an instructor wasn't looking and started flying toward Israel. The IAF had tracked the plane from the moment it took off from Beirut International Airport, and once it approached the border, anti-aircraft batteries locked on. The batteries were not used since the IAF wanted to first identify the aircraft and its pilot.
In the meantime, fighter planes were scrambled and met the Cessna when it entered Israeli airspace. For the next 33 minutes, it was closely followed. The moment the aircraft saw that it was a slow-flying Cessna, they called in Apache attack helicopters.
The plane flew over the water along the coast southward. The IAF tried everything to make the pilot understand that he should not be where he was and had to turn back.
At one point, when he neared Hadera, one of the helicopters fired warning shots at the plane. But the pilot flew on and when the plane started to approach more densely populated areas, it was decided not to wait any longer and the order was given to the Apaches to shoot him down.
Squadron 109 - one of the oldest in the IAF - operates two-seater F-16 D models that arrived in 1987 and 1991. In the Second Lebanon War, the squadron flew 1,230 sorties over Lebanon, dropping a total of 1,725 bombs. Lt.-Col. Avshalom and his pilots participated in the opening night air strike during which 90 plus jets bombed more than 90 targets - all of Hizbullah's long-range Iranian-made Zelzal and Fajr missiles - in 36 minutes.
During Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip earlier this year, the squadron flew 170 sorties, dropping 325 bombs.
Despite all of these operations, if there is something IAF pilots lose sleep overnight from it is the possibility of being ordered to shoot down a civilian airliner on its way to Israel.
"The problem with these scenarios is that we are dealing with a smart adversary who knows that we are imagining various scenarios and creating solutions and responses to them," Lt.-Col. Avshalom explains. "The adversary does not sit by idly and we assume that he is doing the opposite, coming up with ways to overcome our solutions."
THE THREE-day workshop had several focuses. Firstly it aimed at teaching pilots and navigators how to identify suspicious behavior after intercepting an incoming passenger jet. Once alongside the airliner, the pilots first look to see if the blinds are up or down.
"If they are down, we have something to be concerned about," explains Lt.-Col. Avshalom. In addition, the pilots look to see if the airliner is trying to evade them or fly around them.
During the workshop, pilots receive briefings from the IAF's Intelligence Division to learn of the different threats and their level of severity; from civilian air traffic control to learn how a civilian aircraft is supposed to behave; and from an air traffic controller to learn what controllers expect to hear from the pilots who intercept the potential threat.
A new technological system has been developed to assist in identifying commercial aircraft on approach. Called "Code Positive," the smart-card system is designed to identify the aircraft and ensure that it is not hostile.
Developed by Elbit Systems, the cards have been distributed to pilots who fly regularly to Israel. They will insert their cards into a system and punch in a secret code that will be transmitted to a special command center at Ben-Gurion Airport.
The ultimate purpose of the system is to eliminate the need to scramble fighters every time a civilian aircraft fails to respond to calls from air traffic controllers.
The combination of tight security and the new system, aviation terrorism expert Dr. Hillel Avihai says, makes a 9/11-style attack almost impossible. "There are procedures here that prevent any plane that is not identified from even reaching Israeli airspace," he says, adding that more attention needed to be invested in identifying light planes.
Engine-powered paragliders like the one used in the 1987 attack, he added, can be purchased over the Internet and do not require registration.
"The use of aircraft in terrorist attacks is still a strong possibility," he says. "Although it is more likely in smaller light aircraft, paragliders or even remote-control planes."
In addition to light aircraft, Israel is also concerned with explosive-laden UAVs that will try to infiltrate into Israel.
On March 7, 2004, an Iranian-made Ababil UAV entered Israeli airspace from Lebanon, took pictures over Nahariya and other towns in the North, returned to Lebanon and then crashed into the Mediterranean. The infiltration caused the IDF a great deal of embarrassment since the UAV was not detected by IAF radar systems.
During the 2006 war, Hizbullah launched a number of unmanned aerial vehicles. One was shot down by a Python 5 air-to-air missile fired by an F-16, another crashed shortly after takeoff and a third was shot down over the sea. At least one of the UAVs was believed to have been carrying 10 kilograms of explosives.
The UAVs were all Iranian-made Ababils, which have a known range of 150 km., and can reach 300 kph and carry 45 kg. of high-grade explosives. Alternatively, they can carry surveillance equipment.
According to globalsecurity.org, Iran has a number of Ababil and Mohajer-class UAVs. Both can carry surveillance equipment as well as explosives. Iran is known to have supplied at least a dozen Mohajer-4 UAVs to Hizbullah in recent years; they are called Misrad-1 by the guerrilla group. According to the Web site, Syria has a number of Soviet-made Tupolev DR-3 drones.
THE IAF aerial terror workshop focused on preparing the pilots mentally for the possibility that they will be asked to shoot down a civilian place.
"When the siren goes off I have no idea what it will be about," explains Lt. Ben, 24, who participated in the recent workshop. "We only get updated about the scenario once we are sitting inside the plane and ready for takeoff." Regular missions, like bombing runs in Lebanon or Gaza, are much simpler, he says.
Earlier this year, Ben was startled out of bed at 2 a.m. by a blaring siren. As usual, he rushed to the hangar, boarded the plane and took off toward an aircraft that was acting suspiciously. In the end, Ben and his navigator saw that it was not threatening and returned to base.
"In most cases I wake up in the morning, receive my mission, details of who we are fighting against and board the plane," he says. "In these scrambles, the main feature is uncertainty since we have no idea what we are up against until we get up into the air."
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God bless and protect Israel ...I pray for peace in Jerusalem. Amen
Is there someone to spin the propellers? {x];o)>
But pray for the United States, too for we are in trouble too.
May God bless you too.
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