Death from Above

Drones are cheap, accessible and potentially lethal. Could they cause the next 9/11?

- By Tom O’Connor, Naveed Jamali and Fred Guterl

TWENTY YEARS AFTER THE WORST ATTACK ever to occur on U.S. soil, it’s not just large passenger planes that are keeping defense officials and experts up at night. They are just as worried about the threat from smaller, readily available unmanned aerial systems capable of carrying deadly payloads.

Drones are not tomorrow’s weapons of mass destruction. The arsenals of the world’s armies are already full of them. Meanwhile, it is getting easier and cheaper to outfit commercially available models with a range of weapons, making them increasingly tempting options for terrorists and other violent non-government groups.

One U.S. military official who requested anonymity paints a potential nightmare picture involving small drones, referred to as “unmanned aerial systems,” “unmanned aircraft systems” or simply, UAS. “I kind of wonder what could you do if you had a couple of small UAS and you flew into a crowded stadium,” the U.S. military official tells Newsweek. While “no specific knowledge” of an active threat was discussed, the official says “there is concern given the proliferation of small, portable drones, that explosive drones could cause a mass casualty event.”

It wouldn’t be the first time the nation had been caught off guard by a threat looming right in front of authorities. “It’s just like I had no specific knowledge before 9/11 that people could hijack planes and crash into buildings, but Tom Clancy wrote a book about it,” the U.S. military official says.