Arresting wire to prevent overruns
Letter to the editor at Aviation Week.
".....when I was in the Air Force, at every strategic Air command base that I was stationed, the runways were equipped with a simple aircraft arrest system. It consisted of two huge anchor chains on both sides of the runway connected by a spring loaded arrest wire lying across the runway that was triggered by the tower if controllers saw a potential overrun problem. It worked for B-52's and would have saved that Air France A-340."
Are these still in operation and is there any application in the civilian world?