 FACT: According to the story, the villains are ultimately trying to  get into the FAAs computer so that they can make the transponder  readouts of certain planes, that appear on air traffic controllers  radar scopes, disappear. They are supposedly doing this so that they  can have the codes of their drug smuggling aircraft disappear. In  reality, if they want the transponder readouts of their aircraft to  be off radar, the pilots of these planes need only turn off their  transponders, and that is what drug dealers often do. While it is  still possible to get a "skin paint" (where a blip on the scope, due  to the reflection of the radars beam off the surface of the plane)  of each plane, with so many transponder readouts on the scopes, air  traffic controllers would probably not notice a plane without a  transponder. The very best the villains could do with their device  is to make many legitimate planes transponder readouts disappear  from the scopes, thus causing confusion on the part of the air  traffic controllers. In order to spot airplanes illegally entering  the U. S. with their transponders off, tethered aerostats (balloons  in the shape of small airships/blimps) carrying radar look downward.  This equipment was responsible for giving Kuwait advance warning of  the approaching Iraqi army at the start of the first Gulf War, thus  allowing the Kuwaiti Royal Family, and others, time to get away.