Airliner missile defense systems tested

Citation

(2006), "Airliner missile defense systems tested", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 78 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/aeat.2006.12778bab.018

Airliner missile defense systems tested

Airliner missile defense systems tested

Keywords: Aircraft, Defence sector

It is reported that BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman have been working to build systems that could defend airliners from shoulder-fired missiles, recently both companies successfully tested their designs in flight. An American Airlines 767 outfitted with BAE's Jeteye system flew from Fort Worth, Texas, while Grumman's Guardian system was tested on an MD-11 that took off from Mojave Airport in California. Both systems use lasers to jam the guidance systems of incoming missiles. Government contracts call for the systems to cost less than $1 million each and to be easier to maintain and more reliable than military versions now in service.

The impetus to develop the systems has come from military, while the airlines are less enthused, concerned about cost and maintenance issues. “It's a huge expenditure of resources to deal with one type of threat,” John Meanen, Executive Vice President for the Air Transport Association. “We have to ask, `Are there better ways of doing this?'”

Two companies working for the government say they have successfully tested systems to defend passenger aeroplanes against shoulder-fired missiles.

No passenger plane has ever been downed by a shoulder-fired missile outside of a combat zone. But terrorists linked with al-Qaida are believed to have fired two SA-7 missiles that narrowly missed an Israeli passenger jet after it took off from Mombasa, Kenya, in November 2002.

When the testing is complete, the USA's Homeland Security will present a report to the Congress outlining its alternatives for deploying the systems.