Initial reports indicated the Malaysian passenger plane that crashed in Eastern Ukraine Thursday may have been shot out of the sky by a medium-range Russian missile system — but the incident rekindled long-held fears in Washington about threats posed to commercial aircraft by basic ground-to-air missiles around the world.
“The threat to civilian aircraft from shoulder-fired missiles is well known and its a concern for many governments, particularly because of the breakdown in government during recent years in Syria, Iraq and Libya, which has resulted in these weapons proliferating on those battlefields and beyond,” said Bill Roggio, a scholar focused on terrorism issues at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.
But Mr. Roggio, who edits the foundation’s Long War Journal, stressed during an interview with The Washington Times on Thursday that “it’s too early to tell what happened in this incident.”
“Given the location of where this occurred, it seems more possible that it’s a bi-product of the Ukraine-Russia conflict rather than anything related to the jihadist threat associated with the proliferation of shoulder-fired missiles,” he said.
A Ukrainian official said Thursday that the passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down over a town in the east of the country, and Malaysian Airlines tweeted that it lost contact with one of its flights over Ukrainian airspace.
The Associated Press reported that Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters (33,000 feet) when it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher.
A similar launcher was seen by Associated Press journalists near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne earlier Thursday. The Buk missile system can fire missiles up to an altitude of 22,000 meters (72,000 feet). The missiles are not shoulder-fired, but projected from a vehicle-based system on the ground.
Fighting between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russia separatists rebels has raged in Eastern Ukraine during recent days.
On Wednesday evening, a Ukrainian fighter jet was shot down by an air-to-air missile from a Russian plane, Ukrainian authorities said Thursday, according to the AP, which also reported that pro-Russia rebels had claimed responsibility for strikes Wednesdayon two Ukrainian Sukhoi-25 jets.
With regard to the threat posed by shoulder-fired missiles, meanwhile, the State Department issued a statement in 2011 asserting that efforts to counter “the the proliferation of Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) is a top U.S. national security priority.”
“In the hands of terrorists, criminals, or other non-state actors, MANPADS — also known as shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles — pose a serious threat to passenger air travel, the commercial aviation industry, and military aircraft around the world,” said the statement by the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. “The United States is working closely with numerous countries and international organizations to keep the skies safe for all.”
The statement went on to outline how “more than 40 civilian aircraft have been hit by MANPADS missiles since the 1970s.”
“Since the November 2002 attempted shoot down by terrorists of a civilian airliner in Mombasa, Kenya, the United States has stepped up its efforts to keep MANPADS from falling into the wrong hands, launching an initiative to prevent the illicit acquisition and use of MANPADS by terrorists and other non-state actors,” the statement said.
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