An Aviation Nation reader and commercial pilot who flies B-767s wrote in to remind me of a shoulder fired missile attack on a commercial jet that succeeded in hitting its target (photo at right). The incident involved a DHL A300 cargo flight out of Baghdad which was hit by a surface to air missile — reportedly a SAM-7 — on November 22, 2003.

The missile hit the left wing and started a fire above the engine. The flight crew returned to the Baghdad airport for an emergency landing.

Here are details from Air Safe Journal.

Successful Missile Attack on an A300 Jet Airliner
By Todd Curtis, PhD

For the first time in over five years, an airliner was successfully hit and damaged by a portable surface to air missile. The aircraft, a DHL A300, had just departed from Baghdad on a cargo flight to Bahrain on 22 November 2003 when it was reportedly hit by a SAM-7 surface to air missile. The left wing caught fire following the hit, forcing the crew to return to the airport for a successful emergency landing.While no one was injured by the attack, it illustrates that the danger to commercial airliners posed by surface to air missiles is real. Whether this recent attack on this cargo aircraft, as well as an attack on a passenger aircraft last year in Kenya, represents a near term danger to commercial aircraft elsewhere in the world remains to be seen. 

(Photo credit: Air Safe Journal, Editor Dr. Todd Curtis) 

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