BRITISH fighter planes could have as little as 4 minutes to intercept terrorists intent on crashing hijacked planes into the Sellafield nuclear complex in north-west England.
A report commissioned by the environmental group Greenpeace says that every week more than 700 heavily fuelled passenger aircraft fly within about 90 kilometres of Sellafield on their way from Europe to North America. If any one of them was hijacked, it could reach the facility within 4 minutes. Royal Air Force fighters are kept on high alert, but they are more than 100 kilometres away and need 5 minutes鈥� notice to take off. 鈥淭he feasibility of interception therefore appears low,鈥� the report concludes.
Greenpeace claims a terrorist attack on Sellafield is a real threat. Last month President Bush鈥檚 special commission on the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington revealed that Al-Qaida鈥檚 original plan had been to crash planes into 鈥渦nidentified nuclear power plants鈥� in the US.
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But according to Michael Buckland-Smith, the retiring director of the UK government鈥檚 Office for Civil Nuclear Security, concrete barriers are being built around facilities at Sellafield, and there are 鈥渟trengthened warning procedures and interdiction by RAF aircraft鈥�, he says.