MANPADS

MANPADS were developed in the 1950s to provide military ground forces with protection from
jet aircraft. They have received a great deal of attention, partly because armed groups have used
them against commercial airliners. These missiles, affordable and widely available through a
variety of sources, have been used successfully over the past three decades both in military
conflicts, as well as by terrorist organizations.
Twenty-five countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Poland, Sweden,
Russia, and Turkey, produce man-portable air defense systems. Possession, export, and
trafficking of such weapons is officially tightly controlled, due to the threat they pose to civil
aviation, although such efforts have not always been successful.
The missiles are about 1.5 to 1.8 m (5 to 6 ft.) in length and weigh about 17 to 18 kg (37 to 40
lb.), depending on the model. MANPADS generally have a target detection range of about 10 km
(6 mi) and an engagement range of about 6 km (4 mi), so aircraft flying at 6,100 meters (20,000
ft.) or higher are relatively safe.
The acronym MANPADS is commonly altered into a singular form of "MANPAD" to describe a
single weapon of this type.

Missile types
An FIM-43C Redeye missile just after launch, before the sustainer motor ignites
An SA-18 (Igla) missile with launch tube and grip stock (top) and an SA-16 (Igla-1) missile and
launch tube (bottom)
Japanese airmen aiming a Type 91 Kai MANPADS at a mock airborne target in the Pacific
Alaskan Range Complex as part of Red Flag – Alaska in 2008.
A Star streak SAM fired from a M1097 AN/TWQ-1 Avenger Air Defense platform.
Infrared
Infrared homing missiles are designed to home-in on a heat source on an aircraft, typically the
engine exhaust plume, and detonate a warhead in or near the heat source to disable the aircraft.
These missiles use passive guidance, meaning that they do not emit signals to detect a heat
source, which makes them difficult to detect by targeted aircraft employing countermeasure
systems.
First generation
The first missiles deployed in the 1960s were infrared missiles. First generation MANPADS,
such as the US Redeye, early versions of the Soviet 9K32 Strela-2, and the Chinese HN-5 (copy
of Soviet Strela-2), are considered "tail-chase weapons" as their uncooled spin-scan seekers can
only discern the superheated interior of the target's jet engine from background noise. This
means they are only capable of accurately tracking the aircraft from the rear when the engines
are fully exposed to the missile's seeker and provide a sufficient thermal signature for
engagement. First generation IR missiles are also highly susceptible to interfering thermal
signatures from background sources, including the sun, which many experts feel makes them
somewhat unreliable, and they are prone to erratic behavior in the terminal phase of engagement.
While less effective than more modern weapons, they remain common in irregular forces as they
are not limited by the short shelf-life of gas coolant cartridges used by later systems.
Second generation
Second generation infrared missiles, such as early versions of the U.S. Stinger, the Soviet Strela-
3, and the Chinese FN-6, use gas-cooled seeker heads and a conical scanning technique, which
enables the seeker to filter out most interfering background IR sources as well as permitting
head-on and side engagement profiles. Later versions of the Redeye MANPADS are regarded as
straddling the first and second generations as they are gas-cooled but still use a spin-scan seeker.
Third generation
Third generation infrared MANPADS, such as the French Mistral, the Soviet 9K38 Igla, and the
US Stinger B, use rosette scanning detectors to produce a quasi-image of the target. Their seeker
compares input from multiple detections bands, either two widely separated IR bands or IR and
UV, giving them much greater ability to discern and reject countermeasures deployed by the
target aircraft.
Fourth generation
Fourth generation missiles, such as the canceled American FIM-92 Stinger Block 2, Russian
Verba, Chinese QW-4, and Japanese Type 91 surface-to-air missile use imaging infrared focal
plane array guidance systems and other advanced sensor systems, which permit engagement at
greater ranges.
Command line-of-sight
Main article: Command line-of-sight
Command guidance (CLOS) missiles do not home in on a particular aspect (heat source or radio
or radar transmissions) of the targeted aircraft. Instead, the missile operator or gunner visually
acquires the target using a magnified optical sight and then uses radio controls to "fly" the
missile into the aircraft. One of the benefits of such a missile is that it is virtually immune to
flares and other basic countermeasure systems that are designed primarily to defeat IR missiles.
The major drawback of CLOS missiles is that they require highly trained and skilled operators.
Numerous reports from the Soviet–Afghan War in the 1980s cite Afghan mujahedin as being
disappointed with the British-supplied Blowpipe CLOS missile because it was too difficult to
learn to use and highly inaccurate, particularly when employed against fast moving jet aircraft.
Given these considerations, many experts believe that CLOS missiles are not as ideally suited for
untrained personnel use as IR missiles, which sometimes are referred to as "fire and forget"
missiles.
Later versions of CLOS missiles, such as the British Javelin, use a solid state television camera
in lieu of the optical tracker to make the gunner's task easier. The Javelin's manufacturer, Thales
Air Defense, claims that their missile is virtually impervious to countermeasures.
Laser guided
Main articles: Laser guidance and beam riding
Laser guided MANPADS use beam-riding guidance where a sensor in the missile's tail detects
the emissions from a laser on the launcher and attempts to steer the missile to fly at the exact
middle of the beam, or between two beams. Missiles such as Sweden's RBS-70 and Britain's Star
streak can engage aircraft from all angles and only require the operator to continuously track the
target using a joystick to keep the laser aim point on the target: the latest version of RBS 70
features a tracking engagement mode where fine aim adjustments of the laser emitter are handled
by the launcher itself, with the user only having to make coarse aim corrections. Because there
are no radio data links from the ground to the missile, the missile cannot be effectively jammed
after it is launched. Even though beam-riding missiles require relatively extensive training and
skill to operate, many experts consider these missiles particularly menacing due to the missiles'
resistance to most conventional countermeasures in use today.
Notable uses
Against military aircraft
List of Soviet aircraft losses in Afghanistan
Argentine air forces in the Falklands War
British air services in the Falklands War.
On 27 February 1991, during Operation Desert Storm, an USAF F-16 was shot down by an Igla-
1.
On 16 April 1994, during Operation Deny Flight a Sea Harrier of the 801 Naval Air Squadron of
the Royal Navy, operating from the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, was brought down by an
Igla-1.
On 30 August 1995, during Operation Deliberate Force, a French Air Force Mirage 2000D was
shot down over Bosnia by a heat-seeking 9K38 Igla missile fired by air defense units of Army of
Republika Srpska, prompting efforts to obtain improved defensive systems.
On 27 May 1999, the Anza Mk-II was used to attack Indian aircraft during the Kargil conflict
with India. A MiG-27 of the Indian Air Force was shot down by Pakistan Army Air Defence
forces.
List of Russian aircraft losses in the Second Chechen War
List of Coalition aircraft crashes in Afghanistan
List of aviation shootdowns and accidents during the Iraq War
2002 Khankala Mi-26 crash: On 19 August 2002, a Russian-made Igla shoulder-fired surface-to-
air missile hit an overloaded Mil Mi-26 helicopter, causing it to crash into a minefield at the
main military base at Khankala near the capital city of Grozny, Chechnya. 127 Russian troops
and crew were killed.
In the 2008 South Ossetia War, Polish made Grom MANPADS were used by Georgia
Syrian Civil War
On 3 February 2018, a Russian Sukhoi Su-25 piloted by Major Roman Filipov was shot down by
a MANPADS over rebel-held territory while conducting airstrikes over Syria's northwestern city
of Saraqib. [19]
War in Donbas
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
Against civilian aircraft
The 1978 Air Rhodesia Viscount shootdown is the first example of a civilian airliner shot down
by a man-portable surface-to-air missile. The pilot of the aircraft managed to make a controlled
crash landing.
Air Rhodesia Flight 827 was also shot down in February 1979 by the Zimbabwe People's
Revolutionary Army armed with a Strela 2 missile. All 59 passengers and crew were killed.
The 1993 Sukhumi airliner attacks involved 5 civilian aircraft shot down within a total of 4 days
in Sukhumi, Abkhazia, Georgia, killing 108 people.
On 6 April 1994, a surface-to-air missile struck one of the wings of the Dassault Falcon 50
carrying three French crew and nine passengers, including Rwandan president Juvénal
Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira, as it prepared to land in Kigali,
Rwanda, before a second missile hit its tail. The plane erupted into flames in mid-air before
crashing into the garden of the presidential palace, exploding on impact. This incident was the
ignition spark of the Rwandan genocide.
1998 Lionair Flight LN 602 shootdown: On 7 October 1998, the Tamil Tigers shot down an
aircraft off the coast of Sri Lanka.
2002 Mombasa airliner attack: On 28 November 2002, two shoulder-launched Strela 2 (SA-7)
surface-to-air missiles were fired at a chartered Boeing 757 airliner as it took off from Moi
International Airport. The missiles missed the aircraft which continued safely to Tel Aviv,
carrying 271 vacationers from Mombasa back to Israel. In the photos, the missile systems were
painted in light blue, the color used in the Soviet military for training material (a training SA-7
round would not have the guidance system).
2003 Baghdad DHL attempted shootdown incident: On 22 November 2003, an Airbus A300B4-
203F cargo plane, operating on behalf of DHL was hit by an SA-14 missile, which resulted in the
loss of its hydraulic systems. The crew later landed the crippled aircraft safely by using only
differential engine thrust by adjusting the individual throttle controls of each engine.
2007 Mogadishu TransAVIAexport Airlines Il-76 crash: On 23 March 2007, a TransAVIAexport
Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 airplane crashed in outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia, during the 2007
Battle of Mogadishu. Witnesses claim that a surface-to-air missile was fired immediately prior to
the accident. However, Somali officials deny that the aircraft was shot down.
Countermeasures
A 9K38 Igla (NATO reporting name: SA-18) dual missile launch platform mounted on a
Mercedes-Benz Unimog of the Mexican Navy in a Mexican military parade.
Man-portable air defense systems are a popular black market item for insurgent forces. Their
proliferation became the subject of the Wassenaar Arrangement's (WA)22 Elements for Export
Controls of MANPADS, the G8 Action Plan of 2 June 2003,[23] the October 2003 Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, Bangkok Declaration on Partnership for the Future and
in July 2003 the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Forum for
Security Co-operation, Decision No. 7/03: Man-portable Air Defense Systems.
Understanding the problem in 2003, Colin Powell remarked that there was "no threat more
serious to aviation" than the missiles, which can be used to shoot down helicopters and
commercial airliners, and are sold illegally for as little as a few hundred dollars. The U.S. has led
a global effort to dismantle these weapons, with over 30,000 voluntarily destroyed since 2003,
but probably thousands are still in the hands of insurgents, especially in Iraq, where they were
looted from the military arsenals of the former dictator Saddam Hussein, and in Afghanistan as
well. In August 2010, a report by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) confirmed that
"only a handful" of illicit MANPADS were recovered from national resistance caches in Iraq in
2009, according to media reports and interviews with military sources.
Military
With the growing number of MANPADS attacks on civilian airliners, a number of different
countermeasure systems have been developed specifically to protect aircraft against the missiles.
AN/ALQ-144, AN/ALQ-147 and AN/ALQ-157 are U.S.-produced systems, developed by
Sanders Associates in the 1970s.
AN/ALQ-212 ATIRCM, AN/AAQ-24 Nemesis are NATO systems developed by BAE Systems
and Northrop Grumman respectively.