CONPLAN SOTERIA:
Major Air Disaster Response in an Age of Terror
By Robert Martyn, Fellow, CIDP
Originally Published: 9 October 2017
Shattered aircraft wreckage litters the edge of the tree line. Several dozen people lay throughout the site; some moaning in agony while others are deathly still. Overlaying the scene is the roar of a CC-130 Search and Rescue (SAR) aircraft. Such was the grisly tableau that greeted participants, staff, and observers as CONPLAN SOTERIA, the major air disaster (MAJAID) contingency plan, played out during this year’s SAR exercise (SAREX).
The annual training exercise was staged out of Hamilton Ontario, with challenges that featured aerial and ground searches, medical responses, parachute accuracy exercises, varied terrain rescues, plus the MAJAID at Trenton’s Mountainview Detachment. Military participants came from across Canada’s SAR squadrons, Joint Rescue Coordination Centres, and the Canadian Army Advanced Warfare Centre (CAAWC). Additional participants included the Canadian Coast Guard, Transport Canada, and the Civil Air Search and Rescue Association, plus observers from both Canada and foreign nations.
The joint exercise tested approximately 200 people in this vital responsibility; SAR is one of the eight core missions the recent Defence Policy assigns to our military. It is no easy task. Canada’s massive SAR area spans 18 million square kilometres of mountains, tundra, boreal forest, three million lakes, and the world’s longest ocean coastline. Such expanse, exacerbated by isolation as one moves further north — especially within the Arctic — has always created a ‘tyranny of time and distance’ necessary to be traversed to reach a crash.
Our military and Coast Guard combined responds to more than 9,000 search and rescue calls annually, approximately 1,000 of which require launching SAR aircrews. This will undoubted expand with the double drivers of climate change and technological innovation making the far north increasingly accessible. While few states or firms previously had the ability to operate in the Arctic, we currently see rising commercial interest, research, and tourism throughout the north. Such a rise in activity inevitably brings increased safety and security demands.
A great benefit of these training events, beyond the obvious skill enhancements for those being exercised, is the numerous discussions in the margins amongst the diverse gathering of observers. For example, an interesting question was raised regarding the nexus between a major air disaster and a terrorist incident. After a slight pause, NDHQ representatives acknowledged that the issue required more attention. This report therefore provides a brief overview, rather than specific details, of recent terrorist developments that may influence the way ahead.
Terror attacks against aviation are not new. 1933 saw the first instance of a commercial airliner being destroyed by a bomb, when a United Airlines plane exploded in mid-air over Chesterton Indiana. Sporadic aircraft bombings occurred following the Second World War, usually to further a political agenda through VIP assassination. Palestinian extremists dominated the 1960s in their struggle against Israel. Although the September 11th attacks are qualitatively different from MAJAID-type incidents, they did re-focus terrorists upon airliners. Direct attacks on airlines have again surged dramatically following the Islamic State’s 2015 in-flight bombing of a Russian airliner over the Sinai.
Closer to home, 1949 saw Canada’s first in-flight bombing, wherein a Canadian Pacific Airlines DC-3 was destroyed, killing all 23 aboard. Our aviation history changed dramatically in 1985 when Air India flight 182, enroute from Montreal to London, was blown apart by a mid-air explosion that scattered debris over the Atlantic, near Ireland. The 329 fatalities made it the deadliest aircraft bombing and the largest mass murder in Canadian history.
Such attacks illustrate terrorists’ ability to strike the aviation industry, writ large. While early attacks tended to be murder/insurance scams, the past several decades have seen violent political and religious extremism as the key motivator. Over 45 years ago, radical Palestinian leader George Habash famously commented that hijacking a plane had more effect than killing a hundred Israelis in battle. The direct psychological consequences of these incidents draw attention to the extremists’ causes, create tensions throughout the target population, and potentially paralyze transportation networks, even if only temporarily.
The tactics chosen vary and tend to be cyclic, often due to changes in security countermeasures. We still remove our shoes during airline security screening because Al Qaeda member, Richard Reid, attempted to smuggle an improvised bomb aboard a flight within his shoe. The operation failed, but the psychological result remains. Explosives placed in luggage or within the aircraft itself, therefore, have been present for many years. As noted though, tactics evolve. There is growing concern regarding combat experiences terrorist fighters are accumulating in various conflicts; these include anti-aircraft weapons, laser devices, remotely piloted aircraft, and cyber attacks.
- “Traditional” state-produced shoulder-fired missiles are being joined by field-expedient rockets, including heat-seeking versions. Several extremist websites provide directions on how such weapons may be constructed.
- Increased threats to pilots from laser devices have recently increased by 1,000 percent, averaging 11 incidents per day internationally. Transport Canada notifications warn that the risk of temporarily blinding or distracting a pilot, or merely creating windscreen glare, can garner punishments of five years in prison and $100,000 in fines.
- The threat from Remotely Piloted Aircraft (often misnamed “drones”) is gathering momentum, particularly around major airports where airliners are statistically at greatest risk of catastrophic failure, during flights’ take-off departure and landing approach phases. Certain extremist groups are reportedly experimenting with affixing up to several hundred grams of C4-type explosives onto RPA.
- Finally, there are rapidly-evolving cyber threats. Beyond “GPS spoofing,” for which hard evidence is growing, professional debate remains regarding the current threat to aircraft. Cyber-security experts within the passenger compartment have reportedly compromised a plane’s control system, despite the aircraft’s operating network and passenger communications systems being independent.
Amongst the varied terrorist organizations, radical Jihadist social media has shown the most dramatic increase in discussing these various techniques for bringing down aircraft.
The recent SAREX scenario, while large-scale for the rescue personnel involved, was relatively straight forward. SAR Techs determine the crises’ scale and begin the controlled chaos of casualty triage and treatment, as the Hercules aircraft orbits overhead, providing on-scene command. MAJAID stores, air-droppable pallets loaded with tents, heaters, and food from CAAWC are parachuted in, along with soldiers to provide support, such as setting up the emergency structures. As patients are stabilized, CH-148 helicopters arrive to begin evacuating the injured, signalling ‘ENDEX.’
The skills observed were inspiring, providing much confidence in Canada’s military personnel to address the SAR requirements demanded within the Defence Policy. However, adding even a reasonably modest terrorist element raises many complicated issues. Are SAR Techs suitably prepared to address secondary explosions, possible crash scene contaminants, or hostile terrorist survivors? Should RCMP accompany parachute-trained SAR Techs; if so, how? Who determines any military/judicial boundaries? If appropriate, how would JTF-2, CFJIRU, and possibly CSOR fit into a MAJAID situation?
Given the international situation and domestic occurrences of violent radical extremism, Soteria, the ancient Greek goddess of safety and salvation, may require some advice from Ares, the god of war, sooner, rather than later.
