Terrorists breach UK airfield and damage aircraft

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Last Thursday night two terrorists entered RAF Brize Norton, the Royal Air Force’s largest base. After getting past the perimeter security they were able to reach three Airbus A330 MRTT Voyager tankers which were parked on the dispersal area. They then proceeded to attack two of the aircraft, spraying fire extinguishers full of paint into their engines and punching holes in them with a crowbar.

Yes, that’s right - a terrorist attack on a British airbase, and what’s more a successful terrorist attack. Both aircraft are unserviceable. The latest reports say one of the engines may be damaged beyond repair; three more will need completely rebuilt. It will probably be months before either Voyager can fly again, and the bill for repairs will run into tens of millions of pounds. Meanwhile there’s a serious dent in the RAF’s tanker fleet. The Voyagers actually belong to a company called AirTanker, which has 14 of the aircraft. Ten of them are exclusively leased to the RAF. The company has stripped the other four of their refuelling systems and hires them out as airliners; currently the RAF uses two of them for the airbridge to the Falkland Islands, while Jet2 leases the other pair. This means they’re not available as replacements for the damaged tankers (one of which was also the VIP transport for the government and Royal Family). So the RAF tanker fleet has been reduced by 20% - a real, potentially dangerous reduction in military capabilities. It’s not as if a fleet of ten tankers is huge anyway; the US Air Force has 545. A fleet of eight is even more inadequate.

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So this was a serious attack; it’s also an intensely embarrassing one. The terrorists got in and out completely undetected; it appears nobody at Brize Norton was aware of the attack until the perpetrators had already escaped. This would be bad enough if they’d been Spetsnaz-trained infiltrators, flitting silently from shadow to shadow towards their targets. In fact, however, they were a couple of unwashed hippies from Palestine Action, and they “infiltrated” the base on electric motorbikes. It is absolutely staggering that they were able to get in, attack two valuable aircraft and then get out again without being intercepted. Or maybe it isn’t. This is the station commander of RAF Brize Norton:

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