Missile Defensive Systems and the Civil Reserve Air Fleet

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Missile Defensive Systems and the Civil Reserve Air Fleet

G. R. Downing

Imagine yourself executing a tactical departure from Baghdad International Airport in your sleek 1979 Airbus 300. You and your crew are spiraling upward in a steep climb at 170 knots after a successful day of delivering US mail to troops. Passing through 8,000 feet, you hear a loud noise and the plane begins to shudder violently. Your engines are operating normally but you begin to notice the hydraulic pressure decreasing. As you glance out the window, your wing is on fire. Ten feet of the trailing edge of the left wing is gone or damaged by fire. Within a minute, you've lost all hydraulic pressure and your flight controls are inoperative. Your task, get the plane safely on the ground saving your crew and an invaluable asset. This exact scenario played out in November 2003. A Belgian-flagged DHL aircraft, operated by a Belgian and British crew, safely returned to Baghdad International Airport after an attack by an Iraqi terrorist group firing a Man-Portable Air Defense System (MANPADS) rocket. This incident, and an attack on an Arkia Israeli Airlines Boeing 757 in Kenya a year earlier, heightened public awareness of the MANPADS threat. Congress responded by submitting multiple bills demanding commercial airliners be equipped with missile defensive systems. Time and the lack of subsequent incidents have lessened the urgency and attention devoted to this effort. This paper will show that US dependence on the civil reserve air fleet and contract aircraft, combined with a significant threat, demands equipping at least a portion of the US flagged commercial airliner fleet with a missile defensive system.