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Canwest News Service
Canada and the U.S. will review their air defence capabilities to make sure the right amount of planes and crews are in place to protect North American cities from terrorist attacks.
The review by the North American Aerospace Defence Command, the joint U.S.- Canadian alliance, is expected by next spring.
Canadian Maj.-Gen. Pierre Forgues, Norad's director of operations, said defending North America is considered "Job No. 1" on both sides of the border and that the review will conduct an inventory of what the aerospace alliance has in place to deal with various threats.
"You can't be complacent," he said in an interview Monday. "You have to force yourself to do this on an ongoing basis. The situation changes. The theatre we're protecting is forever changing."
He referred to the review, involving Norad personnel in Canada and the U.S., as a "balancing of resources."
Norad will look at the various threats, including the possibility that terrorists could hijack aircraft and fly those into critical infrastructure, such as a power plant or communications centres.
Those doing the study will make recommendations on how equipment and crews should be used and the various scenarios the alliance might face. Forgues said although fighter aircraft and support planes are costly to operate, the price tag for such equipment wasn't behind the decision to review the state of air defences.
"We're comfortable at this point, we're meeting the requirements," explained Forgues. "We just owe it to everybody, including ourselves, to make sure that we continue to ask ourselves this question and answer it in a very deliberate and disciplined way. We'll all feel better we're doing the right thing."
He said the public likely won't see any changes that are brought about because of the review since the number of sites and aircraft assigned for the North American air defence role are considered secret.
The U.S. no longer conducts regular combat fighter aircraft patrols over its cities as it did in the years following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. Such missions were expensive, at one point costing more than $50 million a week.
However, aircrews and aircraft remain on alert for any intrusion into U.S. or Canadian airspace or to deal with aircraft within North America that might stray from their flight plans or fly in an unusual manner.
In April, Norad directed U.S. fighters to intercept a Cessna single-engine aircraft, stolen in Thunder Bay, Ont., and flown into U.S. airspace. The Cessna eventually landed on a highway in southern Missouri when it ran out of fuel. The flight sparked panic in some areas of the U.S., forcing the evacuation of government buildings in Madison, Wis., after the plane approached that city. The pilot was sentenced to two years in jail earlier this month.
In July, fighter aircraft also responded to a small plane that had diverted off-course. The pilot had passed out at the controls and the plane eventually crashed, killing the lone occupant.
Over the last several months, Norad has also conducted air defence training and intercepted flights over Washington and Chicago. Forgues said such exercises, which are publicly announced ahead of time, are valuable since they continue to show various terrorist groups that Norad is continuing to practise for potential threats.
Earlier this month, fighter jets from Norad conducted training over Vancouver Island and B.C.'s Lower Mainland in support of security preparations for the 2010 Winter Olympics. As part of that exercise to test responses to potential threats, Canadian CF-18 fighters intercepted a civilian jet aircraft.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, fighters have responded to more than 2,100 possible air threats, according to Norad.
In January, the Government Accounting Office, similar to Canada's auditor general, called on the U.S. air force to improve the management of its operations to protect American airspace. It recommended that the U.S. portion of Norad routinely conduct assessments to determine the requirements of air sovereignty alert missions as well as the appropriate numbers of personnel and aircraft assigned to support those operations.
