Well the next time you’ll fly, you maybe on the airplane that is protected from shoulder fired missiles. American airlines is helping the * line security apartment test ways to protect those planes. Join me now, from Washington to talk more about the new system is no a shocking of Wired Magazine. Good morning to you, Noah.
Morning.
What is the system called and how exactly does it work?
Ur, it’s an infrared counter measure, what it basically does is, it sets at the bottom of the plane, and it looks out for incoming missiles which are one of the deadliest and most pervasive terrorist threats out there, and so it looks out for missiles, and then when it finds one or if it finds one, it sends out a tiny infrared laser beam to sort of confuse the missile and send it of course.
All right, how many planes have this system in operation right now?
Well, only in the US, commercially there is only 3 and that’s a real problem, ur, the, this is one of the deadliest threats there are out there, there are over 750,000 of these missiles, ur, scattered across the globe, they cost only a few thousand bucks to buy and they can be shot off but just about any body, so they are easy to operate, they are plentiful and they are cheap. And many other countries like Israel for example, have these kind of measures on all their planes, but the US is only got this pilot experiment with 3.
Yeah, and we are looking at some pretty great video and graphic that are showing how this could work? Ur, American airlines is jet that system or they are the only one, * three or * across the definite airlines?
I believe it’s only American airlines right now, and even they have said that they are philosophically opposed to put in more these, more these missiles (Really? Why is that? Is it sound like it’s so expensive?) on the jet. Yeah. Well, it all comes down to money. Although some studies say it’ll only cost you a dollar per coast to coast trip to maintain, these defenses, American airlines and the other airlines have said that, that’s too much money for them. Ur, you know, look, these days they only even give * peanuts service sold on the plane right? (Right.) And charging us for extra bags, and so neither are trying to cheap out on this too.
Yeah, but I mean, don’t you think the consumer, if they know about this, they fell like, well, you know, an extra dollar for this kind of security, I mean, is it pretty full proof?
Ur, I don’t know if it’s full proof, but it’s a lot bit than what we’ve got now, we’ve got nothing.
Yeah, how long do you think they are gonna continue to test this is *?
I don’t know. Look, 5 years ago, there is a, very scare incident in Kenya, in which a pair of shoulder fired missiles was fired in Israeli jet, and it nearly blew up, killed, almost killing hundreds, and so the Israeli government got on board and authored its all air jets with these counter measures. 5 years later, only 3 of these jets in a test mold in the US, so you know, you keep that on, it’s gonna take to a, you know, it’s gonna be a thousand years before we have the US fled out for this.
Yeah, but I’ll try if you are accurate, we just have a dollar plane flight around trip, I mean * coast to coast. Hey, it’s so worthy, think about the other cost, just some like that happened. Anyway, no one (You think…) about what?
Yeah, you know, you think (You think.) I mean, you think if you’re gonna spend this money for an extra bag or for, you know to buy a sandwich on board, maybe you spend a dollar to have your plane protected against the missiles.
Yeah, I truly upon you. OK. Noah Schactman there of Wired Magazine. Thank you.