Congress authorizes $110 million to harden bellies of commercial airlines

The defense of commercial airlines against shoulder-mounted missiles — the technical name is man-portable air-defense systems, or MANPADS — is a pressing issue. There are two approaches to such a defense: One calls for equipping planes with air-borne defensive measures such as jamming devices, the other approach calls for creating defensive envelopes around airports (because of the short range of the missiles, the planes are vulnerable only as they take off and land). Earlier this months two defense giants, BAE and Northrop Grumman, said they successfully tested a laser-based air-borne jamming device. Raytheon is pushing the land-based system.

Either plan is going to be very costly (with the air-borne system much costlier), and there are still questions about the technologies involved, so Congress has approved an interim measure to defend planes: The legislation authorizes DHS to spend up to $110 million in fiscal 2006 to fortify the underbellies of commercial airplanes against shoulder-fired missiles. The amount of money is $49 million more than last year’s authorization. Congress wants DHS to complete the program and begin installation by the end of 2006, but experts and House members say preliminary results of the program “are not entirely encouraging.” A House Appropriations Committee report was blunt in its assessment, saying that the “resulting technologies will not be sufficiently able to meet the challenges of commercial application at a cost that is economically feasible. The committee is also aware of emerging technologies that may be simpler and more cost effective but are far from fully developed.”

Questions about the belly-hardening method led legislators to direct DHS to spend $10 million of the $110 million on alternative technologies, but House and Senate lawmakers deleted the language in conference negotiations. DHS last week finished the second phase of the initiative, successfully testing two rival companies’ technology against MANPADS.

-read more in Greta Wodele’s NJ Technology Daily report