No modern fighter jet can reliably survive a direct hypersonic missile strike under current technological conditions. Hypersonic missiles, defined by their speeds above Mach 5—often exceeding Mach 8 (more than 9,800 km/h)—combine extreme velocity with high manoeuvrability within the atmosphere, allowing them to dramatically change course mid-flight and evade conventional interception methods. 

These characteristics create a nearly insurmountable challenge for current fighter jets and air defence systems.

From the moment a hypersonic missile is launched, it gives almost no warning to its target: it can cross hundreds of kilometres within minutes, giving pilots and ground controllers only a few seconds—if any—to react.

Because these missiles can manoeuvre unpredictably, common airborne countermeasures such as flares, electronic jamming, or out-manoeuvring are largely ineffective. Additionally, hypersonic missiles generate a plasma cloud during flight, absorbing radar waves and making them extremely difficult to detect until they are dangerously close.

Even the most advanced fighter jets typically only receive missile warning with seconds to spare, and unless connected to persistent, real-time satellite or networked sensor data, have virtually no time to take evasive action.

Efforts to counter hypersonic threats are underway, including the development of multi-layered defence systems that use advanced radar, kinetic interceptors, and potentially directed energy weapons such as lasers.

However, none of these technologies are mature enough to offer reliable protection for individual fighter jets against a hypersonic attack. Recent advances focus on integrating artificial intelligence (AI) for real-time threat tracking and proposing potential laser-based defences, but operational deployment is several years away at best.

Air forces are shifting tactics by investing in networked sensor arrays, rapid data transmission, and AI-based threat assessment to at least improve detection and warning times.

There is interest in eventually equipping aircraft with onboard hypersonic weapons for both offence and defence, but this remains a prospect for future generations of fighters and requires breakthroughs in guidance, detection, and miniaturisation technologies.

Under present and near-future technological constraints, no fighter jet is considered "safe" from a modern hypersonic missile strike once it has been targeted and fired upon.

The lethality and evasive potential of these weapons represent a transformative challenge in air combat and demand new approaches in detection, tracking, rapid defence escalation, and possibly entirely new forms of aerial warfare technology.

Based On WION Report