El Al Airlines installs anti-missile systems on passenger aircraft

[Dunvegan]

Last update - 21:37 15/02/2006
El Al Airlines installs anti-missile systems on passenger aircraft
By Reuters

El Al Israel Airlines has installed anti-missiles systems on its passenger aircraft, completing an overhaul launched after a 2002 attempt to shoot down a plane, security sources said on Wednesday.

They said the "Flight Guard", an Israeli-made system costing around $1 million per unit, was operational on the entire El Al fleet. It was not immediately clear if this applied to five planes leased by El Al as well as its own 29 aircraft.

Israel stepped up efforts to adapt military anti-missile
systems for its civilian aircraft after an Israeli charter jet came under attack from shoulder-held missiles in Kenya in 2002. The missiles, fired by attackers linked to al-Qaida, missed.

Flight Guard was developed by state-owned Israel Military
Industries and the Elta defense firm - a unit of state owned Israel Aircraft Industries. El Al began installing the system in its planes in 2004.

[quispquake]

1. My first thought...

If someone hijacks one of these, they're gonna have quite a weapon :(

[CottonBear]

3. No one hijacks an El Al airplane. It's the world's most secure airline.

After the Entebbe event, the Israelis instituted the most rigorous safety and terrorist screening and detection standards of any airline anywhere.

[Tesha]

4. A sufficiently creative person (group) could hijack *ANY* plane.

A sufficiently creative person (group) could hijack *ANY* plane.

You can screen the passengers all you want, make 'em fly naked
in a sealed container, and there'd still be ways that a sufficiently-
well-motivated group could hijack the plane.

Tesha

[Robb]

5. Indeed

And look for that in upcoming El Al flights.

I agree with the previous poster, this is an airline that takes its security seriously.

[CottonBear]

7. True, but El Al has a 100% safe record for decades now. n/t

[noonwitch]

10. They obviously are planning to keep it that way

If they can defend a passenger plane from a missle attack, more power to them.

[seriousstan]

6. What a profound lack of knowledge of weaponry you have. These are flares.

http://www.israeli-weapons.com/weapons/aircraft/systems/flight_guard

WOW! Quite the weapon!

Look at the next generation.....

[Burried News]

2. Smart move. Missile arming could require ground authorization

code to thwart hijackers?

At any rate present airliners are too vulnerable and some thought needs to be given to how to defend them IMHO.

[canichelouis]

8. On the subject of El Al.. trivia

Saw this yesterday.
Learn something new every day!


Chertoff was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the son of Gershon Baruch Chertoff (a rabbi) and El Al's first flight attendant (Livia Chertoff, nee Eisen). His paternal grandfather emigrated from Russia. Michael Chertoff is a citizen of the United States. Israeli law considers him a citizen of Israel as well, because his mother held that status.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chertoff

[donsu]

9. so people would be traveling on a WMD?

nt

[toopers]

11. No.

n/t

[chapel hill dem]

12. The flare system is pretty old technology. The trick is to have sensors

that will pick out a missile coming at you and be able to react in time. Here is an article on the other methods, including the Matador, which is on Air Force One.

http://www.armada.ch/04-6/article-full.cfm

Also, a few years ago a Senator proposed a $10 Billion program to equip all US airline with countermeasures. I don't know what happened to this idea, except that some development and testing was done.

FYI, all airliners in the US are under rules that require the plane to climb to 10,000 feet as soon as the aircraft will allow, thus getting above the effective ceiling of the shoulder fired missiles.