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Aircraft could be brought down by DIY 'E-bombs'

By Paul Marks

1 April 2009

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Electromagnetic pulse weapons capable of frying the electronics in civil airliners can be built using information and components available on the net

(Image: Photolibrary / Getty)

ELECTROMAGNETIC pulse weapons capable of frying the electronics in civil airliners can be built using information and components available on the net, warn counterterrorism analysts.

All it would take to bring a plane down would be a single but highly energetic microwave radio pulse blasted from a device inside a plane, or on the ground and trained at an aircraft coming in to land.

Yael Shahar, director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism in…

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