Best missile defence? Avoid war zones

[ATLANTA] For airliners, there is only one sure defence against the kind of missile linked to the shooting down of a Malaysian jet over Ukraine: staying out of range.

While the US spent at least US$239 million last decade studying whether commercial craft could be upgraded to defeat shoulder-fired, low-altitude weapons, the threat from the sophisticated, Russian-built Buk system defies the technology available to civilian planes.

"I just don't see anything industry-wide that we could do right now that's really going to help," said Brent Spencer, a former US Navy air traffic controller who is now on the faculty of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona.