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Military Analyst Discusses Aviation Missile Defense
Aired December 03, 2002 - 14:52 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Does this technology work? Is it really needed? And is it practical?
Let's talk more about this with Jack Liles. He is our military analyst with CNN Headline News, and he also happens to be a former F- 14 pilot.
Thanks very much for being with us.
JACK LILES, CNN HEADLINE NEWS: Hi, Martin.
SAVIDGE: What do you think about this: practical, really, in the commercial aviation world to come up with this kind of technology?
LILES: I think it's very interesting. As we just saw in the report from Israel, this technology is quite advanced, it's much more sophisticated than what most military tactical aircraft utilize. We just basically hope to see the missile being fired, maneuver the aircraft sharply and pickle 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, Delta Airlines airliner, I'm not sure that this is a practical solution 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: When we look at, let's say, what military aircraft have, one big advantage 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, deploy flares or something like that.
The good news, however, is -- I think there are two points we need to make about these missiles and this threat. First of all, these missiles, while they are 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, for time constraints.
LILES: And these shooters are poorly trained, most likely. We've seen in the instance in Mombasa, from the details I've gotten, more than likely these guys weren't really trained real well in how to attack this aircraft with that missile.
So that said, as well as, I believe, that there is actually a possibility in some instances that U.S. airliners or other global airlines can actually 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.
SAVIDGE: Jack, we have to end it there. Thank you very much, Jack Liles.
LILES: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 3, 2002 - 14:52 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Does this technology work? Is it really needed? And is it practical?
Let's talk more about this with Jack Liles. He is our military analyst with CNN Headline News, and he also happens to be a former F- 14 pilot.
Thanks very much for being with us.
JACK LILES, CNN HEADLINE NEWS: Hi, Martin.
SAVIDGE: What do you think about this: practical, really, in the commercial aviation world to come up with this kind of technology?
LILES: I think it's very interesting. As we just saw in the report from Israel, this technology is quite advanced, it's much more sophisticated than what most military tactical aircraft utilize. We just basically hope to see the missile being fired, maneuver the aircraft sharply and pickle 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, Delta Airlines airliner, I'm not sure that this is a practical solution 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: When we look at, let's say, what military aircraft have, one big advantage 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, deploy flares or something like that.
The good news, however, is -- I think there are two points we need to make about these missiles and this threat. First of all, these missiles, while they are 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, for time constraints.
LILES: And these shooters are poorly trained, most likely. We've seen in the instance in Mombasa, from the details I've gotten, more than likely these guys weren't really trained real well in how to attack this aircraft with that missile.
So that said, as well as, I believe, that there is actually a possibility in some instances that U.S. airliners or other global airlines can actually 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.
SAVIDGE: Jack, we have to end it there. Thank you very much, Jack Liles.
LILES: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
