Angry in the Great White North

A weird story, potentially scary:

The army is looking into a bizarre incident in which a tractor-trailer loaded with anti-aircraft missile launchers was seen rolling down a major Ontario highway.

Several police cruisers were needed to pull over the vehicle as it travelled westbound on Highway 407 near Toronto.

The trailer was carrying two armoured personnel carriers bearing Department of National Defence licence plates and loaded with anti-aircraft missile launchers.

Police say the carriers, formerly registered to the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, were supposed to be delivered to Montreal on Thursday.

Police took the driver into custody at the scene, and the armoured carriers have been taken to a storage depot.

A spokeswoman for the Department of National Defence says the army is investigating.

"At this point, I don't have any confirmation on anything," said Lieut. Morgan Bailey.

Obviously if the truck was heading westbound on the 401 on Friday, it missed the Thursday delivery in Montreal.

What's west? The airport is west of the city.

No word if the cargo included missiles themselves, or just launchers. If I had to guess, I think it would be fair to say that there are safety and security regulations that would require that the missiles be transported separately from the launch system, but I could be wrong.

What sort of system was it? This is just another guess, but the Canadian Army deploys the ADATS to protect troops from airborne threats, and mounts it on the M113 armoured vehicle:

ADATS is a low level short range air defence (SHORAD) system, capable of engaging both air and surface targets. It is manufactured by Oerlikon Contraves based in Zurich, Switzerland and Oerlikon Contraves, Inc. (formerly Aerospace) in Quebec. ADATS is in service as part of the Canadian Forces Low Level Air Defence System (CF LLADS).

The ADATS missile can engage all types of low-level threats, including attack helicopters exposed at stand-off ranges at extremely low altitudes. The system has a 10km range against air or ground targets. The missile has laser beamriding guidance and the laser guidance grid is digitally encoded for precision and immunity to countermeasures. It is equipped with smokeless boost-coast propulsion. The missile has a speed of Mach 3+ and manoeuvrability of 60g.

The missile has a laser fuse with variable fuse delay automatically set at missile launch. The combined fragmentation and shaped charge warhead weighs 12kg and has demonstrated penetration of over 900mm of rolled homogeneous armour (RHA). A total of eight missiles are carried.

Overkill to take out a civilian ariliner.