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Does missile defense system work?
Editor's Note: CNN Access is a regular feature on CNN.com providing interviews with newsmakers from around the world.
(CNN) -- The recent failed attempt to down an Israeli passenger jet with a shoulder-fired missile has focused attention on "Britening," an Israeli-built missile warning system for commercial airlines. According to its developers, the system automatically senses missiles and sends a light beam to deflect them from the plane. But is installing such systems on commercial airlines realistic? CNN Anchor Martin Savidge spoke Tuesday with Jack Liles, a military analyst and former F-14 pilot. SAVIDGE: Does this technology work? Is it really needed? ... What do you think about this for the commercial aviation world to come up with this kind of technology? LILES: I think it's very interesting. ... [T]his technology is quite advanced. It's much more sophisticated than what most military tactical aircraft utilize.... We [jet fighter pilots] just basically hope to see the missile being fired, maneuver the aircraft sharply and [shoot] out some flares to try to deflect the missile off to a flare. This is much more sophisticated type of system. And as we're aware, there are also suppliers in the United States who are working on similar technology and already equipping aircraft like Air Force One and some of our larger military transport aircraft. For your basic United Airlines or Delta Air Lines airliner, I'm not sure that this is a practical solution that we're going to see going on our large-bodied jets in the next few years in defense of this type of threat. We can't get a full can of Coke on Delta right now; I don't think we're going to see them attaching $5 million defense systems for shoulder-launched missiles. SAVIDGE: One big advantage [military aircraft] have is their ability to maneuver, and maneuver in a hurry. An airliner seems like a sitting duck out there if it doesn't have some sort of high-tech defense. LILES: That's right. There's really no means by which an airline pilot can expect to see this missile being launched, to maneuver his aircraft somehow, to deploy flares or something like that. I think there are two points we need to make about these missiles and this threat. First of all, these missiles, while they have proliferated throughout the world -- and there are hundreds of them out there that could possibly be in the hands of folks like al Qaeda -- they've been very poorly maintained. They're old; it's not likely that very many of them even work. SAVIDGE: OK, let's go to the second point. LILES: And these shooters are poorly trained, most likely. We've seen in Mombasa, that ... more than likely these guys weren't really trained real well in how to attack this aircraft with that missile. I [also] believe that there is actually a possibility in some instances that U.S. airliners or other global airlines can survive a missile attack from some of these missiles. It's not a large missile. It's not designed to blow up the entire plane: It's just designed to hone in on the actual exhaust tail section of a large action and explode there, possibly just taking out that single engine, which is a recoverable emergency in some instances. I'm kind of speculating here, but it's possible that these could be survived.
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