"Multiple missiles were fired which missed the aircraft," the spokeswoman said.
The incident -- the third of its kind since May 1, when Washington declared an end to major combat in Iraq after toppling Saddam Hussein -- took place on Saturday morning.
It caused no injuries or damage to equipment.
U.S. troops, who form the overwhelming majority of soldiers occupying the country, have come under daily attacks that have killed at least 67 of them since the beginning of May.
The two prior attacks on planes also missed their target.
Baghdad airport has been closed to civilian traffic since the war due to security fears.
But the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations have been using it for charter flights in and out of Iraq.

One day a missile is going to hit, and it's going to kill 20+ soldiers.

Since Rumsfeld was due to leave Baghdad a couple of hours later, I'm thinking it was meant for him.

As long as they keep using those Russian built missles, we have nothing to worry about.

like all those russian AK's and RPG, im sure the troops tere has the reqired respect for those weapons.
then again, the US patriot was pretty good at shooting down planes

"pretty good at shooting down planes" ... especially "coalition" ones. They were also effective in increasing the odds that scud frags came down over target. Best of all, and precisely according to design, they insured that Raytheon profits continue to accelerate, and soft money is delivered on target, on schedule.

Originally posted by hypewaders
"pretty good at shooting down planes" ... especially "coalition" ones. They were also effective in increasing the odds that scud frags came down over target. Best of all, and precisely according to design, they insured that Raytheon profits continue to accelerate, and soft money is delivered on target, on schedule. The PAC-3 was 10/10 this time around, against Ababil-100s and Al-Samoud 2s. You're thinking of the PAC-1 from 1991, which was an antiaircraft missile by design, and only used as an ABM in a pinch. Amazing that it achieved one intercept at all, really, and it was its examplary performance as a high altitude/high speed antiaircraft missile that turned the DoD on to developing an ABM variant. The PAC-3 is a true short-range ABM system, while the PAC-1 (defunct) and now PAC-2 were/are antiaircraft missiles.

The blue on blue incidents this time around were more than likely caused by operator error in the IFF loop, not a design or implementation flaw.

Your vitriol toward the industry is uninformed and misdirected.

Just like what I said before, it's a set up story to serve this administration. The missiles was a faked one. But government got what they want, "terrorist threaten".

Repost my opinion. "Intelligence used to manipulate criminal gang to reach their goal. They have informants everywhere, and penetrate every organization and company. Terrorist attack such like OKC bombing and 911 attack were allowed to happen, if not conducted by them. With whcih they got more police power.

The typical story is the missile smuggling case. In which the buyer is an FBI informant and supplier is the secret police of Russia. If they only tipped that British weapon agent to a potential terrorist, (you can imagine FBI have a bunch of them in black list of those Islamic fanatics whom are eager to revenge) allow him to shot down an aeroplane. Then there will be a third Mid-east war or a new "Patriot Act 3".

That is how terror attack happens. "

Refer the former news:Quote, "3 arrested in alleged plot to smuggle shoulder-fired missiles into U.S.
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK AND GREG B. SMITH
New York Daily News

......
The intrigue started when Russian intelligence told U.S. authorities about the arms dealer. U.S. agents posing as Islamic terrorists approached him, saying they were looking for a missile to shoot down a jetliner Sept. 11, one source said.

The dealer allegedly took the bait and reached out to contacts in Russia, where a Russian agent posed as a disgruntled military official and sold the dealer the Igla, the source said.
American and Russian agents built a fake Igla and slipped it to the dealer, then monitored its trip to Newark.

(Meek reported from Washington; New York Daily News correspondents Paul H.B. Shin and Kerry Burke in New York contributed to this report.)

Stokes: "Your vitriol toward the industry is uninformed and misdirected."

I think the Industry is unworthy of your worship and servitude.

Patriot battaries have done little to enhance US security and influence, and have in fact contributed considerable military and political embarrassment. This is simple observation, call it vitriol if it disturbs you to confront recent events objectively.

Ignore that ilk of a human, he is obviously defending a horrid system known as the Patriot crap 1 or 2. It can't shoot down anything but blue planes, watch it hype. Watch out for irrational arguments, appeal to auhtority, and sources that contradict themselves. It's a blast!

Originally posted by hypewaders
Patriot battaries have done little to enhance US security and influence, and have in fact contributed considerable military and political embarrassment. This is simple observation, call it vitriol if it disturbs you to confront recent events objectively. What are you basing this on?

Patriots have increased the accuracy of highly inaccurate scuds by bringing them down in population centers. I have schrapnel from such an occurance. The bulk of publicity concerning Patriot has involved friendly fire. As far as cost-benefit, this has been one of the worst systems in the inventory, eclipsed only by DU.

From the show the "Fifth estate"

April 2, 2003
The Can't-Miss Missile
It was touted as the best defence money could buy against Iraqi Scuds and other deadly missiles. But as the fifth estate's Bob McKeown demonstrated on our February 5 programme, the Patriot missile turned out to be a bust in 1991. And now in the early days of the war in Iraq, it seems as if the Patriot has revealed one more fatal shortcoming. It is having trouble telling the difference between friend and foe. A whole new take on a cautionary tale about military hardware and military obfuscation.


Le source (http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/archives.html)

Originally posted by hypewaders
Patriots have increased the accuracy of highly inaccurate scuds by bringing them down in population centers. I have schrapnel from such an occurance. The bulk of publicity concerning Patriot has involved friendly fire. You're using the instance of two Scud impacts as an indicator of overall system performance (of the 1991 technology no less), which is simply a statistics of small numbers fallacy. The Dahran barracks hit was caused by a failed target ID, not a botched intercept (just in case that was the example you had in mind). In any event, the two Scud impacts that occured post-intercept were on small, outlying areas (northwestern suburbs of Tel Aviv). At the time of intercept, the trajectory of both of the Scuds would have put them in major population centers. Their incidental impact on blue ground was a curse ancillary to their mitigation, which was a blessing based on their presumed destinations. Those engagements were soft kills because they rendered the Scud mission ineffective. A good 10% of Scuds that passed within PAC-1 engagement bubbles were not engaged because their trajectories were already indicating a large miss, so the problem you highlight was being taken into account at the time.

IFF has always been an issue and the short decision cycle of ABM systems compounds it because of a reduced window for target discrimination. For a PAC battery to function with 100% of its effectiveness it can't practically function with a man in the loop, so they're set for autonomous prosecution. This means the onus of IFF is left to the blue plane's IFF transponder and the PAC's own interrogation protocols. Without getting into the nitty gritty logic process, it uses more than one layer of IFF for redundancy to reduce blue/blue fires, but they do happen. Blue-on-blue has never occurred due to the technology, but the operators and other extraneous factors of a frantic electronic battlescape. The placement of blame on the Patriot system for friendly fire is incorrect. Our tanks and helicopters kill each other too, but not because their CITV or LANTIRNs suck. FF is an odious reality rooted in the fog of war, and going from historical data, the Patriot cannot be blamed for status quo. It's actually done quite well, from an engineering standpoint, but I'll cry the day we kick back and relax and stop pursuing perfection.

The largest problem with the Patriot is that the Army trumped it up to be a cure-all immediately, which was way off the mark. Out of the 44 Scuds it engaged it likely achieved hard-kills on four to five, and caused another ten to miss their targets. The rest, it missed completely. But blaming the system for such a miss would be like me telling you you sucked because you couldn't hit a fighter plane with a slingshot. The Army made it out to be perfect in a role it wasn't even designed to fill, and after the war, evidence to the contrary surfaced and knees jerked the other way. I blame the Army and our attention whoring "investigative journalists" for the PR problems the system had.
As far as cost-benefit, this has been one of the worst systems in the inventory, eclipsed only by DU. Do you have data on this I could see? By my figures, the costs of DU phaseout are infinitesimal compared to the PAC program's various problems with cost overruns.

"By my figures, the costs of DU phaseout are infinitesimal compared to the PAC program's various problems with cost overruns."

Phaseout may be relatively easy, but there are no declassified figures on DU cleanup. If you know anything about weaponry at all, then you understand that cleaning up DU both physically and politically will certainly be extremely costly.