Its good banter for the punters suggesting a missile defence system but you are all right, no one will pay for it.
As to the vulnerability of an airliner from a missile, it depends on the missile. The Korean and Iranian aircraft were hit at high altitude by missiles fired from an Aegis class boat and a fighter.
The rockets involved were large, had big warheads and were specifically fused in a way to knock down big targets. The dangers to any aircraft of a hull breach at altitude, whilst fully pressurised, are considerably higher than at lower altitude.
Small unsophisticated SAMs of the SA-7 variety only go up to 10,000' or so, have small warheads and are heat seekers. Against the low sightline rates generated by the average airliner, this means that they are most likely to hit an engine causing a, hopefully, contained failure and are less likely to cause a hull breach.
The chances of survival of a big aircraft against such a threat are considerably higher than was the case for the Koreans, Iranians and even Ukranians in the engagements and misslies that confronted them.
Still if launched upon, full back stick on a bus will give at least 2g and 60° of bank, now no missile in the world can pull ......8g! Oh well, best put the missile defence maneuvres on the back burner.
Yep SAMs do pose a threat to civil aircraft in just the same way as do mountains and other lethal phenomena. The Pk (Probability of kill) is probably not as great as some might expect (Pk mountain=1.0). It isn't squeeze the trigger and watch the splash as the uninformed press would have you believe.
There is no point in going overboard about one limited threat otherwise the terrorists have already won.
Ghost
