The thread about Gatwick airport having to shut down runways due to drone overflights has brought to mind something I have wondered about for years:
The threat from man portable, shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles has to be a real concern to commercial passenger and freight aircraft operators, especially on approach and takeoffs. These missile systems would be easy to smuggle into a country, be hard to detect, easy to use (often fire and forget) and employ on the outskirts on an airport. My question to our SF pilots is this: Do commercial and passenger airliners use active anti-missile systems to protect themselves during flight operations?

In short, no.

The danger of one of those missiles to large jets with engines externally mounted on the wings is considerably less than to a fighter. The risk has been judged generally so small as to not justify the cost of installation and maintenance of counter measures.

My companies have operated big fat airplanes into plenty of sketchy areas over the past decade, and the closest to danger is a field or two being mortared with the planes on the ground.

Thanks, Otto! I thought the size and configuration of a large, multi engined aircraft would make it an easy target.

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Originally posted by YooperSigs:
Thanks, Otto! I thought the size and configuration of a large, multi engined aircraft would make it an easy target.

It's not so much a matter of being an easy target, but because the engines are hanging on pylons away from the wing and fuselage, it it much more difficult to do catastrophic damage. Not impossible, mind you, but if you look at the recent history of engines disassembling themselves, the planes are controllable.

Bigger missiles, like the Russian air to air missile that took down KAL, the SAM that took down the Malaysian 777 and our own ship missile that took down the Iranian airliner have enough punch to do it. A single manpad, though dangerous, is a lot less likely to take down an airliner.

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Originally posted by Otto Pilot:
In short, no.

The danger of one of those missiles to large jets with engines externally mounted on the wings is considerably less than to a fighter.
.

Otto, wouldn't wing damage be significant or to the point the pilot cannot control flight?

I believe it was a Mitch Flynn/Brad Thor novel in which a terrorist takes out a plane coming into LAX.

I flew in and out of LAX this week. Coming into LAX over miles and miles of Los Angeles would seem to offer plenty of easy targets. The glide path on approach seems to be stacked up most of the day.

Just like all good answers...it depends.

I'm going to go right out and say I am certainly no expert in the warheads of MANPADS.

I know a 727 was shot down in Africa, but with the way those engines are situated, hitting multiple systems is likely. An Airbus freighter was hit out of Baghdad, but even though the tanks were punctured, it was able to return and land.

As I said, it's not impossible to down an airliner with a shoulder mounted SAM, just a LOT less likely given the modern designs and multiple redundancy. In the grand scheme of things there are easier ways to create mayhem with and to a commercial transport category jet, as the past has shown us. It's a numbers game, and so far the danger has been deemed minimal enough to not warrant extra precautions.

El Al is the noticeable exception in that they DO have defense systems. However, they do a lot of things that are not economically feasible for most every other airline out there. When you only have 46 planes, you can spend lavishly.

in addition the defense systems have their own risks of harm independent of actual use.

While I'm exceedingly far from being even remotely considered a commercial pilot, my experience is on the other side of this equation, having trained on, maintained and loaded Stinger missles with their launchers, ( for aircraft use. )

These MANPAD systems are obviously small and thus have a much lower chance of successfully downing something the size of a commercial airliner.

This is an actual instance of a MANPAD that struck an Airbus over Iraq:




https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...d_shootdown_incident

I saw an interesting interview that the pilot of that Airbus had listened to speech by Al Haynes of United 232 less than a month before this happened. He had mentally gamed it happening, and so was able to recover from the initial "WTF?" and guide the crew to bring the plane back safely.

What if they use an effin .50BMG??!!

quote:

Originally posted by Otto Pilot:
In short, no.

The danger of one of those missiles to large jets with engines externally mounted on the wings is considerably less than to a fighter. The risk has been judged generally so small as to not justify the cost of installation and maintenance of counter measures.

My companies have operated big fat airplanes into plenty of sketchy areas over the past decade, and the closest to danger is a field or two being mortared with the planes on the ground.

Griffin Air?

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Originally posted by kkina:
What if they use an effin .50BMG??!!

Compared to MANPADS, .50s don't have the range to engage as effectively.

This is something I was tasked with while I was working with the USAF SF on and around Baghdad Airport during the surge. Long story but basically, part of our mission was to be ready to interdict rogue civilian airliners attempting to make unauthorized departures from the airport.

We were right on and around the flight line, taxiways and runways, so if we ever had to stop an airliner on the ground, it would be fairly simple. Terrorists and such most likely would have to engage from outside airport grounds and their engagement window would be much more limited, depending on the layout of the airport and immediate surrounding area around it. A .50 cal gun crew and equipment would stand out a fair bit more than one or two guys with a MANPAD on their shoulder who could hide more easily until just before engaging an aircraft. Their standoff distance would protect a MANPAD team greatly as well.

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Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
...

Griffin Air?

No, just a couple of the many airlines that few people see but move a whole lot of stuff and people to far away and less than luxurious locales.

quote:

Originally posted by ARMT Guy:

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:
What if they use an effin .50BMG??!!

Compared to MANPADS, .50s don't have the range to engage as effectively.

This is something I was tasked with while I was working with the USAF SF on and around Baghdad Airport during the surge. Long story but basically, part of our mission was to be ready to interdict rogue civilian airliners attempting to make unauthorized departures from the airport.

We were right on and around the flight line, taxiways and runways, so if we ever had to stop an airliner on the ground, it would be fairly simple. Terrorists and such most likely would have to engage from outside airport grounds and their engagement window would be much more limited, depending on the layout of the airport and immediate surrounding area around it. A .50 cal gun crew and equipment would stand out a fair bit more than one or two guys with a MANPAD on their shoulder who could hide more easily until just before engaging an aircraft. Their standoff distance would protect a MANPAD team greatly as well.

I know. This was intended as a slight to all the hoopla about a sniper rifle that could possibly bring down a commercial airliner. 50BMGs are now illegal to purchase in CA. Barrett will not sell to or service any of its rifles in the possession of any California government agency.

quote:

Originally posted by Otto Pilot:

My companies have operated big fat airplanes into plenty of sketchy areas over the past decade, and the closest to danger is a field or two being mortared with the planes on the ground.

I frequently operate one of those big fat airplanes into many of those sketchy areas, and have for some time. I've been rocketed and mortared more times than I've bothered to count at a variety of those locations, as well as illuminated, fired on, etc, while moving everything from an airplane load of armored vehicles, helicopters, munitions, hangars, UAV's, a lot of unmanifested gear, and not infrequently, the remains of those who gave their all. I still make these flights on a regular basis.

Are man portable weapons a threat? Yes.

Are heavy weapons a threat? Yes.

Realistic threats? Yes.

Shit guppy, that's why you get the big bucks!

I wish.

Funny story, though (at the time). Some years ago, we had flight engineers, and on a double crew into Kandahar, one of the FE's charged up the ladder to the flight deck yodeling something about "we've been shot, we've been shot!"

"Who's been shot?" I asked.

"We have!" The FE said.

"Which one of us got shot?" I asked.

"The airplane. The airplane got shot!"

"Oh. What did we get shot with?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"Are they big holes, or little holes?"

"Big ones, all over the back of the airplane."

"Show me." So down we went. Toward the rear were a number of what appeared to be small caliber holes in the bottom of the fuselage. I looked them over, and remarked that those weren't bullet holes. Each one was a black hole, with peeled paint around the hole.

The flight engineer was adamant. Was I blind? Cleary we'd been hosed down, look at all of them.

Have you ever seen a hole that reflected light? I asked. No, he hadn't. Well, these do? Why is that? Because they're novelty stickers that some joker stuck up there. Sure enough, those little stickers that you get at the dime store, someone plastered all over the place. The engineer stormed off. "That's not funny!" I thought it was funny, but he swore he was going to have someone's job. I have no idea where the stickers came from or why the FE got so bent around the axle, but it was humorous.

There is a road that runs at a diagonal across final when landing there, on which occasionally a vehicle would appear and on occasion the tower noted something arc skyward past us. A time or two gunships departed about the time we landed and spent a few minutes in the area. Occasionally we landed there in a firefight, with a lot of outgoing bangs, a lot of strike packages launching heavy and coming back empty, AC130's in and out, and I've been told to go around there due to incoming, when on short final a few times. I got mortared there one Christmas, then in Kabul for New Years. There was a period of time when the base was getting smacked about every six or eight hours, and because our time on deck was long enough, we'd always be there for at least one attack. At a few places, rumor was that because we were the tallest thing on the field, we became the aim point for incoming. That may or may not be true.

Be that as it may, there are genuine threats out there, and they are very real.

quote:

Originally posted by Otto Pilot:
El Al is the noticeable exception in that they DO have defense systems. However, they do a lot of things that are not economically feasible for most every other airline out there. When you only have 46 planes, you can spend lavishly.

Plus, Israel has actual experience of MANPADs being fired at airliners.

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The 2002 Mombasa attacks were terrorist attacks on 28 November 2002 in Mombasa, Kenya against an Israeli-owned hotel and a plane belonging to Arkia Airlines. An all-terrain vehicle crashed through a barrier outside the Paradise Hotel and blew up, killing 13 and injuring 80. At the same time, attackers fired two surface-to-air missiles at an Israeli charter plane. The Paradise Hotel was the only Israeli-owned hotel in the Mombasa area.

[...]

Almost simultaneously, two shoulder-launched Strela 2 (SA-7) surface-to-air missiles were fired at a chartered Boeing 757 airliner owned by Israel-based Arkia Airlines as it took off from Moi International Airport. The Arkia charter company had a regular weekly service flying tourists between Tel Aviv and Mombasa. Kenyan police discovered a missile launcher and two missile casings in the Changamwe area of Mombasa, about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from the airport. The pilots planned on an emergency landing in Nairobi after seeing the two missiles streak past them, but decided to continue to Israel. The airliner landed at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv about five hours later, escorted by Israeli F-15 fighter jets. Following the attack, all flights from Israel to Kenya were cancelled indefinitely.

[...]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Mombasa_attacks