Experts Warn About Shoulder-Fired Missile Threat

Foxnews ^ | 3-1-04 | Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

[Indy Pendance]

WASHINGTON

[Indy Pendance]

.

[bmwcyle]

TWA-800

[cripplecreek]

That popped into my head at the same time.

[Indy Pendance]

That thought crossed my mind too.

[Reelect President Dubya]

"Overshadowed by the debate over passenger screening is a terrorist threat as real and elusive as a hijacking — the possibility of terrorists using shoulder-fired missiles (search) to down a commercial jet, either on the tarmac or in the air."

Don't you just love the way the pretend this has not already happened.

[MineralMan]

Without countermeasures on board the aircraft, there is nothing that can be done to prevent such an attack in this country.

I give you an example: LAX has almost all its take-offs over the ocean, but landings approach over the city, covering many miles at low altitudes over residential and industrial areas.

There is no way that these approach patterns can either be changed or protected.

During landings, airliners are extremely vulnerable. They're flying low and slow.

Countermeasures are the only protection.

[cripplecreek]

I seem to remember a story recently about some missiles being found in a house in mexico, just a few blocks from the border.

[cripplecreek]

I was sitting in a parking lot in Romulus Michigan the other day watching the jets take off. They really are vulnerable. from where i was sitting they were only at around 1000 feet.

[COEXERJ145]

TWA-800

Not possible as TWA-800 was out of range of a man portable SAM. Also, MPSAM do not hit the fuselage of an aircraft. They lock onto the most powerful heat source, the engines. At the very most a MPSAM would knock off an engine of a 747, not blow it to bits. Remember, a DHL A300, an aircraft much smaller than a 747, was hit in Iraq by a MPSAM and landed with one engine out and some wing damage.

[bmwcyle]

Wrong a Soviet SA-7 has a seven mile range. It could have made it. You need to read more.

[txhurl]

They can't bear the torture of covering up yet another downed plane for years and years.

[Indy Pendance]

I remember reading that too.

Rocket launcher found in Tijuana drug raid

[MineralMan]

"I was sitting in a parking lot in Romulus Michigan the other day watching the jets take off. They really are vulnerable. from where i was sitting they were only at around 1000 feet."

Lots of cities have similar situations, where takeoffs or landing approaches pass over lots of area. Where that area is heavily populated, there's no way it can be protected.

In a way, I'm amazed such an event hasn't already happened. TWA 800 just isn't likely.

[Ditter]

I wish I understood what these terrorist expect to gain by killing a plane load of people. They can't do anything but make us mad. We will go after them & we will get them. I know they hate us but this is small potatoes.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Shoulder fired missiles in Kenya ? Don't go there.

[txhurl]

But it's a great recruiting tool.

[MineralMan]

"They can't do anything but make us mad. "

Not exactly. Let one US airliner be shot down by a shoulder-fired missile within the USA itself, and the airlines will be crippled immediately. That disruption of our entire commercial aviation industry would be way more devastating, economically, than you can imagine.

While some business travelers might continue to fly, only idiots would fly for other reasons. This is a disaster waiting to happen, and the only solution is countermeasures on every airliner.

One single terrorist could cripple commercial aviation. Count on it.

[Toespi]

Are you kidding? If a plane was taken out of United States air space with a shoulder fired missile, the airline industry would be put on it's head. In my opinion, that is why the facts of TWA 800 have been kept secret,

[cripplecreek]

I though of it because i had just gotten off at the middlebelt exit. It was where a plane had crashed in the 80s killing all on board except a small child.

It just jolted me into thought.