Plane with U.S. officials was fired at / House members say C-130's defenses repelled missile; Boxer argues for similar equipment on commercial jets

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Members of Congress are used to being attacked by their political opposition, but being attacked by anti-aircraft missiles is another matter entirely.

In January, a six-member delegation of the House Armed Services Committee, led by Rob Simmons, R-Conn., came under missile attack as they traveled "lights out" on a military plane from Baghdad to Kuwait, according to three members of that delegation.

Reps. Jeb Bradley, R-N.H., John Spratt, D-S.C., and Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, confirmed the incident to The Chronicle.

Sources familiar with the Defense Department investigation into the attack said the missile used in the attack on the C-130 carrying the delegation was an SA-18, considered the most sophisticated of Russian shoulder-fired missiles, or MANPADS (man-portable air defense systems).

Missile avoided

According to those same sources, the missile was deflected by the plane's countermeasures -- based on technology Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and other lawmakers have been seeking for commercial airliners.

Maj. Robert Palmer, spokesman for U.S. Central Command Air Forces, refused to comment on the reported attack and what specific means were used to protect the plane. "Coalition aircraft operating in Iraq have defensive countermeasures. For purposes of operational security, we cannot discuss the types or capabilities of these countermeasures," Palmer said.

Although missile attacks on Air Force transports occur regularly in Iraq, the type of missile said to have been used in the attack on the delegation's plane ratchets up the threat to both military and commercial aircraft.

"The SA-18 is significantly harder to defend against" than earlier-generation MANPADS, said Daniel Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, a military affairs think tank based in Arlington, Va. "The SA-18 has increased range, increased altitude, and is much better able to home in on a vital piece of aircraft equipment."

Countermeasures

Concern over missiles such as the SA-18 prompted the military to begin installing systems that use lasers to deflect the missile's aim from its intended target.

Shortly after the November 2002 attack on an Israeli airliner in Mombasa, Kenya, Boxer and Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., began pressing for the installation of similar defenses on the U.S. commercial airline fleet.

In 2003, Congress ordered the Department of Homeland Security to determine how best to adapt the military's laser-based infrared countermeasures systems (know as DIRCM, or directed infrared countermeasures) for use on commercial aircraft. That study, begun in January 2004, is not likely to conclude for another 18 months, when a report is submitted to Congress.

Meanwhile, no countermeasures have been installed on any U.S. airliners, including the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, civilian airliners that ferry troops to and from the Middle East for deployment to Iraq.

A call for protection

"The Civil Reserve Air Fleet ... (is) a prime target for terrorists or enemies with MANPADS," Rep. Israel said. "The impact of the loss of just one such aircraft would be incalculable. ... It is past time to extend this protection to the CRAF fleet and, ultimately, to the entire commercial air fleet."

According to recent press reports, a number of SA-18 missiles have slipped out of Russia. Baker Spring, a fellow in national security policy at the Heritage Foundation, said people should be "incredibly concerned with missiles from the former Soviet Union's stockpiles" flowing into the black market.

James Tuttle, head of the Homeland Security Department's counter-MANPADS efforts, has stated publicly that such weapons "are readily available worldwide."

Although there have been no definitive examples of MANPADS being used within the United States, Defense Department documents show that MANPADS have hit civil aircraft 43 times worldwide and destroyed 30 of the targeted aircraft. About 900 passengers and crew died in these attacks.

In an interview, Boxer urged the Bush administration to address the threat posed by shoulder-fired missiles.

'The cost of not doing this'

"We had a scare in Los Angeles last year when an American Airlines pilot reported seeing a rocket right after takeoff. Authorities couldn't rule out the possibility it was a shoulder-fired missile," she said. "We had a scare in Iraq in January, when my colleagues said they believed a shoulder-fired missile was fired at their plane."

According to Boxer, two companies have developed countermeasure systems for use on commercial aircraft that can be installed for less than a million dollars per plane.

"I don't think a million dollars to protect a $120 million aircraft -- that's the cost of a sound system on one of these jets -- is too much, and frankly, the cost of not doing this is absolutely incalculable," Boxer said.

Russian SA-18 missile system

The SA-18 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile system launches a heat-seeking missile designed to destroy airplanes or helicopters.

SA-18

Total weight 40 pounds

-- Launcher

Length: 5 feet, 7 inches

Time to fire: 16 seconds

-- Missile

Length: 5 feet, 6 inches

Diameter: 2.8 inches

Warhead weight: 4.4 pounds

-- Performance

Range

Minimum: 547 yards

Maximum: 3.2 miles

Target altitude

Minimum: 33 feet

Maximum: 11,482 feet

Target speed

Maximum: 895 mph

Sources: Department of Defense; Periscope

New York Times