Tags:
Journalism of Courage
What prompts this piece is a spate of articles on the rising potency of the LTTE’s air arm and its alleged impact on our nuclear reactors in Tamil Nadu. At a time when the 123 debate is on, the uninformed reader may conclude that there’s no reason to invest in such facilities, given a potential Chernobyl-type disaster set off by the LTTE’s fly boys.
It must be noted that nuclear reactors are not soft targets like, say, oil refineries, which are difficult for even a modern air defence to protect. In contrast, nuclear plant structures have thick concrete walls with heavy reinforcing steel and are designed to withstand large earthquakes, extreme overpressure and hurricane force winds. In 1988, the Sandia National Laboratory in the USA conducted a test slamming an F-4 Phantom jet into a large concrete block at approximately 500 mph. The plane left only a 2.5 inch deep gouge in the concrete.
In the ongoing debate over Iranian nuclear facilities, it is relevant to note that the Americans and the Israelis are stockpiling very powerful conventional deep penetration bombs, each weighing thousands of pounds. If there is a planned attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, these bombs are likely to be dropped from medium and high altitudes to attain the relevant kinetic energy by high-tech aircraft like B-2 and F-16 fighter bombers, in order to destroy them.
Interestingly, it was not the Israelis who first carried out an air attack on the Iraqi Osirak reactor but the Iranians. On September 30,1980, two Iranian F-4 Phantom jets flew over Baghdad and dropped bombs on this facility. To their surprise, the bombs just bounced off the reactor’s dome and hit fuel tanks close by. Although the resultant blaze was spectacular, the damage to the plant was insignificant. The Israelis must have realised then that a nuclear reactor structure is not a soft nut to crack. Highly accurate and deep penetration bombs would be required to first crack open the containment building before getting to the actual core.
What have the LTTE’s air arm got? It is believed they have couple of Czech built Zlin Z-143 single propeller trainer aircraft. They used these to bomb the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) base at Katunayaka outside Colombo on March 26, 2007, killing three and injuring 20. The attack embarrassed the SLAF, but shouldn’t give us sleepless nights. To even obliquely imply that this puny air effort can destroy the Kalpakam reactor is at best only a joke!
Even if the LTTE were to use these aircraft in a Kamikaze attack on the reactor plant, nothing should happen to the reactor core if our engineers have made the buildings as per proper specifications. A study by the Electric Power Research Institute of the US used state-of-the-art computer modelling techniques and found that typical nuclear plant containment structures can withstand the impact of even a civilian airliner crashing on to it.
But even as I say this, I am not suggesting that precautionary measures should not be taken. All efforts must be made to ensure that our air space is made inviolable against both state and non-state actors.
