WASHINGTON – Because of conflicts in Ukraine and Israel, airlines and regulators are growing worried about military weapons capable of shooting down planes falling into hands of people outside government control.
But an expert on military hardware dismissed as minimal the threat from surface-to-air missiles in the hands of terrorists because of the sophistication and cost of weapons that can hit a plane cruising more than 30,000 feet above the ground.
The aviation industry is grappling with the threat after a Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down July 17 over Ukraine with 298 people aboard. U.S. intelligence sources say a missile brought down the plane and puncture marks in the fuselage suggest the weapon was a Russian-made SA-11.
“The threat is posed by both state and non-state actors, which could employ these capabilities,” Claudio Manno, the Federal Aviation Administration’s assistant administrator for security and hazardous materials safety, told a conference Thursday of the Air Line Pilots Association.
“This is a concern that is really emerging now,” Manno said. “It’s a different dynamic than what we’ve had to deal with in the past.”
The shoot-down in Ukraine spurred the International Air Transport Association, which represents 240 airlines worldwide, and the International Civil Aviation Organization, a branch of the United Nations that recommends policies, to call for governments to better manage the deployment of anti-aircraft weapons. Such conventions are already in place for chemical, nuclear and biological weapons, said Tony Tyler, CEO of the airline group.
But John Pike, executive director of GlobalSecurity.org, said the systems are so expensive and difficult to operate that only about 50 nations have the capability to fire them, and independent militants couldn’t manage it.
© 2014 USA TODAY. All rights reserved.
