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Philippine officials: terrorists may be using kites
Al-Qaida-linked militants and their sympathizers may be using an unlikely weapon to strike at attack helicopters and cut the risk of aerial raids on their jungle strongholds: kites.A Huey helicopter encountered difficulty while flying back at night from a recent combat mission on the southern island of Jolo after a kite's thick nylon cord became dangerously entwined in its rotor, Philippine air force chief Lt. Gen. Horacio Tolentino said Monday. The pilots had noticed unusual vibrations, and managed to land safely in a Jolo military camp, he said. An air force officer familiar with the incident told The Associated Press that the kite's cord most probably struck the Vietnam War-era Huey over a sparsely populated mountainous region, from which the aircraft evacuated soldiers wounded during a clash with suspected Abu Sayyaf militants. It was unlikely the kite had been flown by ordinary civilians, the officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. Several kites may have been flown, then tied to trees surrounding a rebel encampment as an extra buffer against nighttime air attacks, the officer said. "They really have an intention to bring down our helicopters," Tolentino told the AP. After the incident, Tolentino said he instructed air force pilots to undertake "evasive maneuvers" aimed to protect choppers from kites during landing and takeoff in Jolo, especially at night. Inspectors were deployed to ensure no kites were being flown near air force areas, he said. Kites' potentially lethal power caught the country's attention last May, when a Huey helicopter crashed on a busy street near an air base in central Cebu province, killing nine people, seven of them on the ground. Investigators said the nylon kite cord, which accidentally got coiled in the assembly connecting the main rotor to the aircraft's body, may have caused the crash. Tolentino said the air force endorsed a bill to Congress that would penalize people who fly kites near airports and air bases nationwide following that deadly accident. Posted by: ryuge 2007-09-17 |
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