As KFWB radio reports, a FedEx MD-10 cargo jet equipped with Northrup Grumman‘s Guardian anti-missile defense system took off from LAX on Tuesday. During this test phase, which will be until March of 2008, nine MD-10s equipped with the system will be in commercial operation. While these systems are being tested on cargo planes, the data will be used with an ultimate goal of defending passenger aircraft.
Even though no passenger airplane has been downed by a shoulder-fired missile outside of a combat zone, terrorists are believed to have fired two missiles that narrowly missed an El Al passenger jet in Kenya in 2002. The testing is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Counter-Man Portable Air Defense Systems program, the counterpart to various measures being worked on sponsored by the European Union. BAE Systems has contributed to both programs.
This flight followed sixteen months of tests on an MD-11, an MD-10, and a Boeing 747 using simulated launches of missiles. El Al itself already has an anti-missile system called Flight Guard, installed last year on its planes at a cost of one million a piece.