Estimated Cost: $1.9 Million Per Aircraft

British Airways says it's talking with aerospace manufacturers about the development of a missile defense system for use on its passenger-carrying aircraft. The London-based airline says it's still in the "early days" of the project, according to the BBC.

The price tag for installing the system in all 300 of BA's jetliners could be staggering: $570 million. But aviation security experts are making a big noise about the threat to commercial and GA aircraft posed by SAM shooters near airports. Just last month, a suspected British arms dealer, Hemant Lakhani, was arrested for trying to sell Russian-made SAMs to undercover agents posing as Somali terrorists. Last year, terrorists in Kenya fired not one, but two SAMs at a departing Israeli jetliner.

Still, there is a precedent for installing missile defenses on commercial aircraft. Israel's El Al does it. Other Israeli airlines are set to install them as well.

Then there's the regulatory process. British Airways says "We would have to ensure they didn't compromise existing safety systems, onboard electronics or the overall structure of the aircraft." That's going to have to pass muster at the UK's Civil Aviation Authority, as well as its counterparts in Washington and Ottawa.

The BA spokeswoman also said, "Where there is a terrorist risk, we believe the most effective preventative is for the relevant authority to identify any likely launch site near airports."

BA isn't saying just what kind of anti-missile system it hopes to develop. BBC reports it could be the same sort of system now employed by military aircraft -- radar detection, followed by copious amounts of flares and chaff (pictured above, right). There is a laser-based air defense system out there, but the cost of mounting that on every plane in the BA fleet would be even more horrendous. Still, the laser systems can detect a missile lock and automatically set its defense operations in motion.

FMI: http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:S.311:, www.british-airways.com