Passenger planes at JFK to be outfitted with anti-missile systems

[wraggster]

Hey, we try our best to be as paranoid as the next guy, but we confess we were caught a little off guard by this one. US Department of Homeland Security folks announced yesterday that three American Airline passenger planes that frequent JFK airport are going to be set up with anti-missile systems in a test run to see if they'd be effective in helping to prevent a terrorist shooting down a jet with a shoulder-fired missile. It's step three in a government-mandated program to determine the suitability of such systems, which involve radar jammers to throw ground-fired missiles off course. The tests are to determine if the jamming system works in real-time conditions, and what sort of sustained costs of maintenance will be required, but all actual tests of the technology have already been performed on non-passenger jets, so it appears no actual missile-firing will be required. Oh come on, you know you were thinking it.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/05/p...issile-system/

[Shadowblind]

Or...

If terrorists take over said jets, they will have a weapons system on board to do who knows what with it and potentially shoot down other planes.

So....WTF?