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Virtual Pilot Lands Qantas Jet
An anonymous reader writes "Australian airline Qantas has successfully tested an automated landing where both the pilot and the control tower didn't talk to each other. The plane was being piloted by a "Virtual Pilot" located in the control tower."
...a Quantas flight carrying 357 passengers and crew plummeted to its destruction for unknown reasons.
Sydney air traffic control reports picking up garbled radio traffic fragments, but is still trying to decode the meaning of "D00D! U G0T PWNT!!!"
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
How long until a virtual terrorist hijacks the uplink and "lands" this automated plane in a building?
I'll bet that nobody thought of that. We know that aviation people just don't give a darn for safety. And people just don't worry about protecting themselves from terrible things that have already happened.
There's probably not a pilot on the plane who can take over any time he wants.
The whole system is probably connected to the internet, too.
Heck, the uplink is probably unencrypted tones on a CB channel that any kid could generate by whistling into his walkie talkie.
Yes, we should be scared.
Thinking of ST II: Wrath of Khan, where Kirk uses the 'prefix code' of the ship Khan's hijacked to drop its shields just before blasting it... Then you have the problem of keeping the in-cabin override switch unknown to the general public so the hijackers can't just lock out the tower as soon as they take the cockpit.
Coming soon: virtual passengers to save the airline industry.