Special to WorldTribune.com

TEL AVIV — Israel has completed trials of a missile warning system for commercial aircraft.

The Defense Ministry said it oversaw trials of the SkyShield missile warning system, developed by Israel’s Elbit Systems. The ministry said the tests of SkyShield, also known as C-Music laser-based defense system, were successful.

“The experiments, carried out in southern Israel, were some of the most complex and sophisticated ever carried out in Israel,” the Defense Ministry said. “They simulated a range of threats that SkyShield will have to deal with.”

SkyShield was designed to use a laser beam to deflect surface-to-air missiles fired at passenger and other civilian aircraft. The system took about a decade and nearly $200 million to develop, assisted by the Israeli government after a failed Al Qaida SAM attack on an Israeli passenger jet in Kenya in 2002.

The Israeli Transportation Ministry has selected SkyShield to protect Israeli airliners from shoulder-fired missiles.

Officials said a major threat was that of SAM fire by Al Qaida militias from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

The Defense Ministry deemed SkyShield the most advanced civilian aircraft defense system in the world. The ministry did not say when the system would be deployed.

Elbit has reported orders of SkyShield from the air forces of Brazil and
Italy. The company also said Israel, which earlier used flare and chaffe,
has ordered the system.

“The success of the test has proven the system’s qualitative
capabilities and positions Israel as a global leader in the field of
protection of aircraft against shoulder-launched missiles,” Elbit president
Bezhalel Machlis said.

  Elbit Systems, Israel tests laser system to protect passenger jets from shoulder-fired missiles, SkyShield