US considered 'suicide jet missions'

BBC ^ | August 29, 2002 | BBC

[RightWhale]

It's not shocking at all. Ramming the enemy has always been a common military technique, usually of last resort and dangerous. The question is whether ramming a jetliner would save lives on the ground. If it's over NYC to begin with a lot of people will be hurt anyway. If it's headed for a major building the decision is easy, but if it's not apparent where it might be going, it's not easy.

A jetliner headed for the White House or the Congress would be taken down any way possible as soon as this was apparent, no matter where else it might come to rest after being rammed.

[pfflier]

A pilot could probably set up a collision trajectory and eject just before impact.

Nope, try again. The forces associated with ejection (impulse from the ejection charge/rocket motor and the change in the balance of the aircraft due to weight shift not to mention aerodynamic airflow redirection over the now open cockpit area) would certainly alter the flight path. The pilot would not be guaranteed a survivable ejection depending on speed and attitude.

To collide intentionally would take tremendous courage because you gotta know that you're going to ride it down.

[Arkinsaw]

Whichever.

[fso301]

I don't know if this was already covered but in WWII, Japanese pilots used such techniques against loaded B-29's with some success. Certain contact angles provide for a good chance of downing the bomber and for the attacking pilot to safely bail out. I think it was either ramming the wing or sitting the plane on the bombers cockpit.

Recall the hot-dogging A-6 crew in Italy whose vertical stabilizer cut a 1 inch steel cable. A fighter pilot could use a similar tactic to approach head on and clip either the wing or vertical stabilizer of the jetliner, then bail out. Another possibility would be to approach from the rear and use his wingtips to bang up the rudder, elevator or ailerons of the jetliner.

Kind of makes one wish for the days of propeller aircraft. I remember reading about a Marine F4 Corsair pilot in WWII who intercepted a Japanese reconnisance plane at high altitude. Both planes guns were frozen so, the F-4 approached the Japanese plane from the rear and used his propeller to destroy the Japanese planes rudder. The Japanese plane crashed and the F-4 pilot was credited with a kill.

[Trailerpark Badass]

I'm no military guy, but even I can see the enormous flaw in the logic of this article. We may have had only four planes in the air, but that was because the "hostile" planes we were "defending" against all started their flight as tracked, transponding commercial jetsm with flights originating as scheduled from commercial airports within the continental US. The article then slyly implies that the only air defense assets we had were those four (or fourteen) planes. I can guarandamntee you that we could detect an airborne threat originating from a hostile nation long before it got within 1000 miles of US airspace.

[kms61]

The operative word in the Colonel's quote is "asked." I don't think they would have given a direct order, but it might be one of those cases where it's understood what has to be done and the guy just does it without being told.

Given enough time, I'm guessing there would be ways for a fighter to bring down a plane without ramming it...maybe knocking it out of control with jet turbulence, or frosting the cockpit windows with the afterburner, as I think happened in one of the Clancey books. Of course it it's 30 seconds to impact, ramming might be only one sure fire way of bringing the plane down in time.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

The only jets up in the air would have been those training, and a handful of jets used for drug intradiction.

This is all true. But the statement from the article I took exception to was about pilots on alert...which is different than having jets on standby or in the air.

The quote was: "However, at the time of the attacks the US had just four fighter pilots on alert covering the north eastern United States."

That has to be absolutely false. If the bloody Brits can't get their facts straight they ought not be publishing these articles. If they meant "jets on standby or in flight" they should have printed that.

[Rokke]

NORAD is alive and well and evolving. But the threat has evolved from hordes of Soviet Bombers to single ICBM's launched from rogue nations. Until Sept 11 that is. Now NORAD has been retasked to construct and control a defense to counter the hijacked airline threat. In my opinion, that is an impossible job.

[BluH2o]

This is nothing more than speculation by the BBC. Further, in the unlikely event a fighter pilot had to crash his aircraft into a commercial aircraft commandeered by terrorists, there are ways for a skilled pilot to do this without getting killed in the process. Knocking off the tail assembly of the target aircraft by ramming it is one way that comes to mind.

[VOA]

bump

[IronJack]

Apparently ABC News has corroborated this story, at least the part about the suicide takedowns. I still don't trust it, but at least there's a smidgen more credibility.

[piasa]

This would be a great job for Chinese pilots.