RAF fears have rocket launchers which can SHOOT DOWN passenger jets
RAF steps in amid fears have rocket launchers which can SHOOT DOWN passenger jets. ISLAMIC STATE fanatics may have got their hands on portable rocket launchers which they could use to SHOOT DOWN passenger jets, it emerged today. Defence chiefs fear that crazed militants may have raided Colonel Gaddaffi’s stock of up to 10,000 sophisticated surface-to-air missiles, capable of downing a plane flying below 20,000ft. The former Libyan dictator was renowned for stockpiling deadly weapons, which could easily have fallen into terrorists’ hands amid the chaos that followed his ousting and execution in 2011. RAF experts have been dispatched to north Africa and the Middle East to teach foreign armies how to prevent terrorists from shooting down airliners, in a sign that the British government is becoming increasingly worried about their capabilities. Ministers have been warned that it is “too late” to stop the portable ground-to-air missiles – known as “manpads” – from falling into extremists’ hands. Last year Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a heat-seeking BUK missile, thought to have been launched from the back of a lorry by Russian separatists in Ukraine.
