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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 15, 2003

SCHUMER: HOMELAND SECURITY DEPT TAKING EARLY STEPS TO START OUTFITTING COMMERCIAL AIRLINERS WITH ANTI-MISSILE TECHNOLOGY

Schumer, Boxer, Israel team up to secure commitment from DHS on getting anti-missile technology installed on American commercial airplanes

Shoulder-fired missiles have a range of over 3 miles, well within the flight patterns of the 90,000 planes flying in and out of New York City airports every month

US Senators Chuck Schumer and Barbara Boxer, and US Representative Steve Israel today announced the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is taking preliminary steps to start outfitting the nation's commercial air fleet with technology to protect them from shoulder-fired missiles. Shoulder-launched missiles have a range of over 3 miles, well within the flight paths of the 90,000 planes which fly in and out of the three New York metro area airports every month, and are known to be in the possession of some of the world's most dangerous terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and Hezbollah.

"On Thanksgiving, we learned the hard way about the dangers of a shoulder-launched missile when one almost brought down a commercial airliner in Kenya. You don't need to be a counter-terrorism expert to know that if a group like Al-Qaeda tried this once, they're going to try again if we leave our planes unprotected. If there is one sure-fire way for a terrorist to strike a lethal blow against America, it's by using one of these shoulder-fired missiles to bring down a commercial jet," Schumer said.

"So we got mobilized and we started working on a plan to get our airliners equipped with anti-stinger technologies. We came up with legislation and called Governor Ridge, Admiral Loy and countless others to hammer home the need for action. And thank god, they listened. Homeland Security is going to get the ball rolling to start coming up with a plan to outfit our airliners with anti-missile technologies."

For the first time ever, DHS is going to issue a Congressionally-mandated report formally acknowledging the need for outfitting the commercial air fleet with anti-stinger technologies and will ask two companies to build prototype countermeasure systems that could be outfitted on commercial planes. In addition, DHS will issue a Broad Agency Announcement to solicit proposals from high-tech firms on new technologies that could be used to protect the commercial air fleet. Finally, DHS has informed the lawmakers that the Administration will ask Congress for funding to implement the technologies.

In November, terrorists fired a Soviet-made Strela shoulder-launched missile at a commercial airliner over Kenya. More recently, US intelligence officials alerted airliners and law enforcement agencies that terrorists had smuggled shoulder-fired Stinger and SA-7 anti-aircraft missiles into the United States. The alert came after a Saudi security officer found an abandoned SA-7 missile launcher near a desert air force base used by US forces near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This news is especially disturbing since both Al Qaeda and Hezbollah possess SA-7 and Stinger missiles according Jane's Intelligence Review of September 2002.

"We know that 27 terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, have these weapons. We know they fit in the trunk of your car. And so someone could drive, get on a rooftop near an airport, go into a woods near an airport, and fire one of these. If I were a terrorist, this would be probably the easiest way to kill hundreds of people and scare tens of millions more," Schumer said.

There are two main types of shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles: the US-made Stinger and Russian-made SA-7 Strela. Both are about five feet long and weigh less than 40 pounds making them highly mobile. Each has a range of over three miles and uses a heat-seeking infrared guidance system to hone in on targets. In addition to their mobility and range, these anti-aircraft weapons are dangerous because they require little training in order to use. US officials estimate that thousands of Stingers that had been shipped to Afghanistan to aid the Mujahedeen in their battle with the Soviet Union remain unaccounted for despite multiple attempts by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to re-purchase them. During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Mujahedeen with only rudimentary training downed over 250 Soviet fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Earlier this year, Schumer, Boxer and Israel teamed up on proposals to protect against a shoulder-launched attack:
? Israel and Schumer's legislation would authorize the cost of retrofitting all existing aircraft. There are 6,800 commercial jets in the US fleet. It is estimated that a fully operational anti-SAM system on all US planes would cost from $7 billion to $10 billion. The bill requires that installation begin by the end of this year. The technology to protect US commercial airplanes exists and is operational on US military transports. The new systems are much more successful than the previous system of diversionary flares and pose no threat to civilians. The most modern systems, such as those installed on US C17s and C5As, identify when a plane is threatened, detect the source of the threat, jam the guidance system of the incoming missiles and steer it off its flight path. Similar systems are currently used on low-altitude military aircrafts.

? Installing such a system requires one week and would cost between $1 and $1.5 million depending upon the number of planes equipped. It would cost approximately $7 to $10 billion to equip the 6800 commercial jets with the system, almost $500 million less than the $8 billion per year the United States spends on research for a missile defense system.

? Development of ground-based jamming device The TSA should work with the Department of Defense in developing a ground-based missile jamming device. Rafi Ron, former head of airport security at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport and a top airport security expert, says that a ground-based system that jammed guidance systems on stingers and SA-7s is in the works, but that it is still in the idea phase. Such a system would be much cheaper than equipping each plane and would logically become part of making an airport more secure.

? Finally, the easiest way to prevent an attack is to not let the weapons into the US. Schumer has led the effort to improve the security of New York's ports and has gotten legislation passed to impose stricter cargo reporting standards, increased penalties for unreported cargo, and more manual inspections.

In March, a top TSA official acknowledged the dangers of portable missiles and called for stepped-up security around airports and military stocks of the missiles. "If just one terrorist in the United States gets his hands on a shoulder launched missile, it won't matter how many bags are checked, how many doses of small pox vaccine we have, or how many people go through metal detectors. With our enemies trying to smuggle one of these into our country, we have to defend ourselves every way we can. Otherwise the potential consequences could be catastrophic," Schumer said.

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