The aircraft of the Tamil Eelam Air Force have vanished from the skies, two weeks after staging one of the most daring attacks in the history of global terrorism.

A massive search of the Northern Province by the Sri Lanka Air Force in the last two weeks has failed to turn up any signs of the Tigers’ two light aircraft which carried out the attack.

Senior SLAF officials believe it likely that the Tigers have dismantled their aircraft for the time being, and are concealing the parts in innocent looking locations. The worry is that these aircraft may continue to be undetected, allowing the Tigers to launch surprise attacks again some time in the future.

The SLAF has been searching with all measures at its disposal, including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and reconnaissance aircraft, all of which are equipped with high definition cameras. The areas around the LTTE’s two known airstrips have come under particular scrutiny.

Meanwhile, the SLAF has still not come up with a dignified explanation to the nation as to how it allowed enemy aircraft to travel to within a few miles of the country’s capital city, attack the SLAF’s main base adjacent to the Bandaranaike International Airport, and get away scot-free.

In the past two weeks, the SLAF and government officials have put forward a plethora of ridiculous excuses for their dismal failure to protect the nation, each of them progressively worse than the preceding one.

What is even more worrying is that the SLAF has still not come up with a proper strategy to prevent more such attacks from the air.

Such a strategy would have to be twofold - firstly to detect enemy aircraft in the air, and secondly to intercept and destroy them.

With regard to the former, overenthusiastic SLAF top brass came up with the ridiculous idea of asking the public to report any low-flying aircraft to a special hotline 116. This has resulted in the SLAF being deluged with hundreds of calls from the public, reporting all types of aircraft at all heights. Every one of them has so far proved to be an SLAF aircraft or a civilian airliner. But what is most worrying is that it has taken considerable time for the SLAF to firmly establish the identity of each aircraft, due to exaggeration and misreporting by the public. Needless to say that had any LTTE aircraft been in the air, it would have got through and attacked its targets long before the SLAF identified it from ground reports from the public.

A far more reliable means of gathering information is from frontline units of the Army, Navy, and Police in the North. In fact, this was clearly proven by the fact that the Tiger aircraft were detected while over Vavuniya by the Special Task Force, during their last attack.

The country’s radar systems, whose operation was found to be so woefully wanting during the attack due to negligence on the part of the SLAF and the Airport & Aviation Sri Lanka Ltd. (AASL) operators, has now been completely reviewed by the SLAF. Recommendations have been made to purchase extra radar systems in order to have some of them in operation when others need to be shut down for maintenance purposes. The link between the SLAF and the AASL operators, who are in charge of handling civilian aircraft throughout the airspace of the Sri Lanka region which extends from the Maldives to halfway across the Bay of Bengal, has also been strengthened to ensure that any detection of unidentified aircraft is reported to the SLAF immediately.

However, all these measures are nothing extraordinary, and should have been in place many years ago. In fact, these are measures that should be standard procedure even in a country that is not at war, much less one that is battling one of the most devious and cunning terrorist organizations in human history.

With regard to intercepting and shooting down LTTE aircraft, the SLAF has made a series of proposals to the National Security Council. We will not go into details for security reasons, but incredibly SLAF officers leaked one of these measures to several newspapers last week - the procurement of surface to air missiles to guard the main air bases of the SLAF.

Other measures have already been taken, which include the dispersal of aircraft throughout the 14 bases of the SLAF. This ensures that any future attack will have minimum effect on the SLAF’s capabilities. Again, this should have been a standard procedure set in place many years ago.

The SLAF has come in for much criticism by the way that its top brass attempted to point the finger of blame at everyone but itself. First came the absurd suggestion that the radar gifted by India was defective. This insulting insinuation was quickly withdrawn when the Indian High Commission shot it down and showed its displeasure at such an accusation.

Then came the amazing explanation that the radar had been switched off to carry out maintenance, and that an informant may have tipped off the LTTE to carry out the attack in that period. While the possibility of LTTE spies is being investigated closely, the fact is that there are several radar sets at both the SLAF and AASL, and that not all of them could have been switched off at one time, since it would have left the international airport blind and caused a severe danger to airliners in Sri Lankan airspace. If all these radars had been switched off, then it would point to an extraordinary conspiracy on the part of the SLAF and the AASL to help the Tigers!

However, the CID and the SLAF are investigating the circumstances under which some of the radars had been switched off.

Another suggestion was that the Tigers flew at very low level to avoid radar. This may have been the case for some parts of their journey, but given the relative inexperience of the pilots, it is highly unlikely that they would have been able to maintain an altitude of less than 500 feet throughout the journey. Moving above 500 feet would have brought them on to the radar screens. In any case, some of the radar sets can detect aircraft even at 100 feet, although only close to the airport.

Another suggestion was that the SLAF checked the STF’s sighting report, and concluded that it was an aircraft of a foreign airline. But airliners fly at vast heights around 35,000 feet, in order to achieve optimum fuel efficiency. Flying low to the ground wastes a huge amount of fuel. No airliner would be at a few hundred feet over Vavuniya. When they do come down, it is to land, and of course also during takeoff. In addition, airliners are jet aircraft, while the LTTE is using turboprop aircraft. A jet airliner at 35,000 feet would never have been reported by STF officers as a low flying turboprop plane.

The most ridiculous suggestion was that the Opposition had brought about the attack by digging up dirt on the purchase of the MIG aircraft, after former Ministers Mangala Samaraweera and Sripathi Sooriarachchi made various accusations about it.

Meanwhile, former SLAF chief Air Marshal Oliver Ranasinghe gave a hard-hitting interview to the media, in which he demanded to know what had happened to the radar-operated anti-aircraft guns that had been purchased during his tenure in 1995 following the certain warning by intelligence of the presence of LTTE aircraft at that time. These guns lock on to a target, and fire on radar bearings. It is thus of no consequence whether the aircraft come during the night or day.

Air Marshal Ranasinghe also scoffed at the SLAF’s continuous bombing of the LTTE airstrips, saying that light aircraft can even take off from a road. In fact this column has continuously pointed out this fact over the years. He also criticized the SLAF’s failure to intercept the enemy aircraft after the attack, pointing out that even an MI24 helicopter gunship has the weapons to shoot down a light aircraft. Such gunships are stationed throughout the bases around the Northeast, including Anuradhapura, Kalpitiya, Vavuniya, Sigiriya and Hingurakgoda, which could have intercepted the enemy planes.

Meanwhile, operations at Katunayake have returned to normal, proving that there is no lasting impact from the attack. This includes the international airport, where all foreign airlines have individually taken decisions to continue flying. Cathay Pacific, which embarrassed itself by making a panicked announcement immediately after the attack that it was pulling out of Sri Lanka, has now reversed its decision and will be recommencing flights from 22nd April.

The question now is not whether the SLAF can protect Katunayake alone, but whether the SLAF can prevent air attacks in other parts of the country, including Colombo. Given that the SLAF failed to destroy enemy aircraft that flew several hundred miles for several hours, it would be hard put to find and shoot down the Tiger aircraft should they next attack a target in the Northeast, and vanish within a few minutes, rather than stay aloft for hours.