Passengers aboard Israeli jetliners will be the first to gain protection against the small, portable surface-to-air missile, which security experts fear will become the weapon of choice for terrorists targeting civilian aircraft.
The El Al airline announced yesterday that it will equip its jets with anti-missile detection systems and flares designed to lure heat-seeking warheads away from their targets.
"We expect the first plane to be flying by June, and this is just the beginning of a comprehensive upgrade of the El Al fleet," a spokesman for Israel's transport ministry said.
It is the first airline to announce plans for anti-missile measures despite mounting fears that the small, inexpensive shoulder-fired weapons -- easily hidden in a vehicle -- will be used to shoot down airliners as they land or just after they take off.
"The threat is real and can happen any time," warns AOC, an electronic-warfare lobby group that has pressed the U.S. government to fund counter-measures more aggressively. "It would only take one successful [missile attack]to have a devastating effect upon the commercial airlines industry."
The Israeli system -- a modified version of the protection many military aircraft employ -- is expected to cost more than $1-million (U.S.) per plane, even if it goes into large-scale production.
It includes sensors to detect the red-hot plume of an approaching missile, a computer that identifies the threat and flares ejected into the aircraft's wake, in time, it is hoped, to divert a projectile travelling at more than 500 metres a second.
Other countries have studied the system, but the cost of protecting all of the 10,000 large jetliners flying around the globe would be astronomical. And the protection isn't foolproof.
In Iraq, at least two large U.S. military aircraft equipped with missile protection have been hit by small shoulder-fired missiles in recent months after taking off from Baghdad. Both managed to land safely.
There have also been close calls involving civilian aircraft.
A civilian Airbus A-300 flying cargo out of Baghdad in November was crippled by a shoulder-fired missile. Although the pilots managed to land the aircraft -- with a display of remarkable airmanship -- the extent of the damage shook the airline industry.
Insiders had hoped the small-warhead missiles would do little more than engine damage. But the Airbus lost all three hydraulic control systems and was landed using only engines to control direction.
A year earlier, suspected al-Qaeda attackers fired at an Israeli Arkia Boeing 757 jet packed with holidaymakers heading home from Mombasa, Kenya. Two Soviet-era Strelas missiles were fired, but both missed -- probably because they were fired too close to the departing aircraft.
The launchers, a little more than a metre long and weighing about 20 kilograms, fire a baseball-bat-sized missile that tracks the heat signature of a jet engine. The missiles can climb as high as 3,000 metres.
A crippled airliner spinning out of control and crashing into a heavily populated area close to a major airport could cause hundreds of casualties.
But although there have been at least 35 attacks with shoulder-fired missiles on civil aircraft in the last 25 years, the AOC says only one or two large jets have been downed.
The missiles were originally designed to shoot down helicopters. Washington gave hundreds of the U.S. version, known as the Stinger, to Afghan fighters battling the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.
An estimated 5,000 shoulder-fired missiles are traded on the world's illegal arms bazaars. Russian, Chinese, Egyptian, Pakistani and U.S. missiles are all available, sometimes for as little as $5,000, according to testimony at U.S. Congressional hearings.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has asked three contractors to produce prototype missile-protection systems for airliners. They need to be simpler but not less effective than military versions, which require expensive and regular maintenance.
In Canada, the federal Transport Department is awaiting the results of U.S. research and development.
"We're following the R and D effort closely," department spokesman Bernard Pilon said. Canada will take action if it determines the threat is real and there is a way to protect aircraft, he said.
Military systems are designed to fire flares even if a missile is merely suspected. But at busy civilian airports, the possibility of dozens of flares being unleashed every day in response to false warnings could lead to fires on the ground and panic in the skies.