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MIT Professor Offers Theory on Patriot Friendly Fire
Patriot missile systems might have shot down two allied planes last year during Operation Iraqi Freedom after targeting “ghost” ballistic missiles, according to a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (see GSN, July 29, 2003). The Defense Department has not yet released results of its investigation of a March 23, 2003, downing of a British warplane or the April 2, 2003, missile hit on an U.S. F-18 Hornet, according to Inside the Army. Theodore Postol said, though, that the large number of radar systems deployed in Iraq and Kuwait might have contributed to the accidents. With numerous systems operating in the same airspace, “multiple radio signals … can be simultaneously bouncing off a tracked aircraft,” Postol wrote in a report. Delays of signal pulses by “roughly tenths of milliseconds” could cause the radar systems to see a “ghost ballistic missile” and warn Patriot operators, said Postol, an MIT professor of science, technology and national security policy. Postol speculated that after the Patriot missiles were launched, they searched for the object creating the false signals, but when they failed to find the object, they honed in on the aircraft that spurred the ghost radar images. Postol acknowledged that his theory is an “informed guess,” according to Inside the Army, and critics questioned the report given that there were only two Patriot-related accidents during the thousands of military flights during Operation Iraqi Freedom (Emily Hsu, Inside the Army, April 26).
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