Michelle Malkin reports that a story is circulating that a missile was fired at America West Flight 17 from JFK on Sept 15. She called Phil Gee, Associate Manager of Media Relations for America West, who told her that the captain reported an 'irregularity' to air traffic control. Nothing is confirmed yet, but the FBI interviewed the passengers and crew on the plane when it landed safely in Phoenix.
At this point, we don't know if the story is true. Who saw the 'irregularity'? What, exactly, did they see? Did anybody on the ground see anything?
We've been worried about missile-armed terrorists lurking around our airports for some time (here's a 2003 article by Rich Lowry on the subject). Indeed, a British businessman was convicted just a week ago of trying to sell such missiles to an FBI informant in New Jersey. Whether or not a shoulder-fired missile like a Stinger or SA-16 could shoot down a jumbo jet is a subject for debate, but what I think ISN'T a subject for debate is the effect such an attack would have on our already tottering commercial airline industry. Who wants to fly in what is essentially a big clay pidgeon? Next time, take the train...
Defending against such a threat is possible. We can equip commercial jets with missile warning sensors and countermeasures such as flare launchers. The Navy is working on an even better system called TAD-IRCM which uses a laser to burn out the infrared seeker of shoulder-fired missiles (SUH-WEET!). Obviously, however, we don't even want to allow terrorists to get their hands on missiles, and we certainly don't want to allow terrorists to infiltrate the United States. While much has been done to improve our security since 9-11, much remains to be done. Unfortunately, political will seems lacking. If somebody DID shoot a missile at Flight 17, it should serve as a wake-up call to Washington and every American that we need to redouble our efforts to protect us from terrorism.
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