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Wireless Devices Could Foil Hijack Attempts
ErikPeterson writes Flight attendants soon may be outfitted with wireless devices that would be used to alert pilots of attempted hijackings or other in-air security threats.
The Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday that it plans to require that airlines provide a way for the cabin crew to "discreetly notify" pilots "in the event of suspicious activity or security breaches in the cabin."
The proposed regulation, which is not yet final, grew out of an advisory panel that the Transportation Department created after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. That panel recommended that cabin crew have "a method for immediate notification to the flight deck during a suspected threat in the cabin" that would permit pilots to take appropriate action, such as beginning an immediate landing."
Cool. So this is the first real-world implementation of Wi-Fi-Fly-Hi-Ji technology!
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
What about just having a security camera in the passenger cabin?
In other news, I recommend to Taco that he blow up this childish 403'ing of the w3 validator so we can actually, uhm, test your new layout as you have asked us to. Kthx.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
How long until someone hacks these devices and starts sending false alarms? Terrorists wouldn't have to actually hijack planes anymore! Just stuff the devices in someone's baggage with a timer on them. They're non-explosive, so they wouldn't be sniffed out, and I'm sure they could disguise them. All you need is a power source and the transmitter. Think of how easy it would be to freeze airlines. I hope they really make an effort to make sure that these things are secure.
Before you die, you see DoubleRing...
Yes, because in highly stressful situations you will be able to "subtly keying the (intercom) in a specific manner" as mentioned in the article. It amazes me sometimes that engineers and techheads don't factor in humans under stress.
It's not just blocking them. You'd have to count on the crew actually being able to set off the alarm. Think of banks: they started putting buttons under the counter or in a discreet location. Now a holdup person comes in and the first thing they want is everyone's hands in the air.
I'm trying to imagine a device a crew memember could activate without it being seen. Once word gets out that they press a button on a wrist band, or something else, hijackers will know what action to watch for and what device to remove from the staff.
Maybe they'd be better off with something like the health monitors I saw on the Tour de France. They're wireless and transmit things like heart rate to a monitor. The pilot would have to evaluate the info. If he sees one crew member with a sudden heart rate increase, he can check on that person, but if it happens to two or more at once, that would be a strong indication that something stressful is happening in the plane.
This sounds pretty good to me to but rather than blocking ot what if someone learns how to send fake signals. Instead of blowing up or hijacking planes a person could cause several to make emergency landings, thereby really screwing up air travel.
You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep.
Honeywell is developing a device that will take over the controls from the pilot if the plane is heading for a restricted area. If your plane is being hijack, you will not crash into a building for sure. But if the plane is fine and the computer takes over, pray that it won't crash the plane!
Being able to go up and talk to the pilots as a kid? and they gave you those little wings. that was so cool when i was like 8. too bad my kids probably wont be able to do anything like that.
...what is a pilot going to do when the alarm goes off? Go back there and check it out? Land the plane... right, because that's so subtle. You only have to take the plane down 30000ft, ding the searbelts and more often than not, notify the passengers because it happens to be very damn visible from all the windows.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
An AC posted the following in a thread on the recent Thoughts on the Space Elevator story:
A few seconds of warning would be enough to hit a Lockout button. There wouldn't be anything like enough time to land a plane or even change its position enough to bother a hijacker (terrorist or mere jet thief).
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Wireless notification device? You mean like the hi-jacking transponders the 9/11 terrorists turned off after hijacking the plane? I never knew there was such a thing until I read the 9/11 commission report. I guess it was somewhat of a secret to allow pilots to subtly notify controllers of a hijacking until the hijackers found out. My point is that once this little "secret" is out, how are we going to stop hijackers from disabling it as well? Would it be something wore under the cloth? It should be easy to activate so that activation can be disguised. But if it is easy to activate, what's to stop someone from accidentally activating it? I guess it's better than the conspicuous[sp?] intercom system.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
You know, if you actively monitor the feeds, you can tell when the signal is being jammed ... they'd have to override the devices completely ...
Air marshals putting bullets in the heads of potential hijackers can foil them, too. :)
:D
Why bother with potentially cranky technological solutions when extreme violence works better, and is much more satisfying?
Remember: violence is the last refuge of the incompenent... because the competent don't leave it until last.
if it were a wristband i would press it anyway if a hijacker told me to put my hands up. i would take the risk to save people on the ground. odds are the hijackers dont have a gun or anything else too dangerous. besides that, i really dont think a plane is going to be successfully hijacked for a looooooooong time. flight 93 is evidence for that.
always mosh clockwise
Could this also notify the flight crew of impending airline bankruptcy?
How many hijackings have there been since 9/11? My naive expectation is that hijackers would now have a short life expectancy, no matter how they're armed.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Yes, because some 16 year old twit notifying her boyfriend (and probably the rest of the plane) of what kind of sandwich she just ate is much more important than notifying the pilots of a hijacking ...
"Hold up there skip, I.. i'm getting an email. Oh my god! we're getting hijacked! Wait. No, I got another one that says we're ok, it was a joke. Wait! another one! this one... hey skip? Can we drop by Nigeria? Aparently this guy has 10 million dollars and he'll give us half if we just help him get it out of the country. Ha! you gotta see this one, aparently Cathy stole Ausies lunch and is ripping her a new one via bluetooth! Hey is that a mountain ahead?"
Passengers kick terrorist ass. That's the most reliable way to stop a terrorist on a plane. Remember Richard Reid?
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
One good scream, and the flight deck will have been immediately notified of a problem of some kind in the cabin. Low tech. But pervasive. All the flight attendents already have the necessary hardware. Batteries won't run out.
No door between cabin and cockpit!
Wow, no more problems. Hijackers can do what ever they want in the back but they can't get to the pilots.
For current planes, retrofit with impenetrable doors that can not be opened after take of. Even by the pilots.
Now with out control of the plane there is no reason to hijack and the skies are safe!
Remember KISS
Keep it simple stupid.
not because of any these dump security measures, but for the simple fact that all passengers will have to assume that they won't make it out alive and hence fight the hijackers (which is what happened with the 4th 9/11 plane).
the code to signal ground controller that there's a hijack is to set 7500 on your normal transponder(there's no seperate trasponder). after you set it, you probably want to hit ident couple times to make sure people notice it. and They'll confirm with you that you are indeed want to set it at 7500. I've accidentally set it at 75xx a few times by mistake when I want to set 55xx, but those mistake were caught easily and early (duh)
This action assumes that the pilot is still at the control and have access to transponder and radio. (in the event like 9/11, hijackers know how to fly the airplane, thus bypass the security measurement)
On the other hand, in a case like 9/11, you restrict their movement, keep them away from the passangers with their hands up, until you no longer need them. Then you either kill them or severe their hands.
Making it hard to get away from someone is just a sure way to make sure it's either cut off or the person is killed.
The problem is that most details should not be published, but will be found out anyway. If you've got a highly organized group, you set up a fake hi-jacking. The perps watch what happens to be sure they know what the signal is. Then they communicate this info through their lawyers to their partners.
Why not just put in video cameras?
So the pilot doesn't have to watch the passengers getting killed while he refuses to open the cockpit door?
The parent says: "Maybe they'd be better off with something like the health monitors I saw on the Tour de France. They're wireless and transmit things like heart rate to a monitor. The pilot would have to evaluate the info. If he sees one crew member with a sudden heart rate increase, he can check on that person, but if it happens to two or more at once, that would be a strong indication that something stressful is happening in the plane.".
Right. Can you spell m-i-l-e-h-i-g-h-c-l-u-b?
It seems like we're dealing with terrorism in EXACTLY the same way Microsoft deals with computer security. To wit: we patch and patch and patch the exploited breaches while ignoring likely targets simply because they haven't been exploited yet.
Retired from software... maybe. Sort of.
If a terrorist wants to blow up the plane, he'll smuggle on a metal-free fuse-detonated bomb (like the shoe bomber) and he'll blow it up from the toilet (unlike the rather foolish shoe bomber.) This device doesn't matter at all if all the terrorist is trying to do is take down the plane. Indeed, nothing short of mandatory strip searches can stop this sort of attack.
As for hijackings, you don't need to worry about it because IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. I can't believe people still think that terrorists will try again to hijack a commercial airliner and use it as a missile--it was a one-time trick and it will NEVER work again. If you want proof of this, you need look no farther than United Airlines Flight 93. ONE HOUR after the first plane hit the trade center, the passengers of the Pennsylvania flight decided not to let the terrorists keep control of the plane. Despite the fact that the terrorists had already taken control in the cockpit and should have had a significant tactical advantage, the passengers were able to overwhelm them and force them to abort the mission. Had the passengers acted earlier, they would have never even made it to the cockpit. A few passengers may have died, but NO ONE can stand against dozens or hundreds of passengers stampeding them in close quarters.
Our mindset has changed now, and not a single person in the USA, from a seven year old boy to a ninety year old grandmother, is stupid or cowardly enough to let someone hijack the plane. This device is pointless, because no potential hijacker will ever made it to the cockpit ever again.
But, back to the point. Doesn't anybody remember the Moscow Theatre hostage crisis, when the Russian government ended up killing 120-odd hostages with their "sleeping gas"? And, guess who would be most likely to die? You guessed it - children and babies. It's likely in your scenario that that baby would die before its neck started to bend. There's reports that the US government is quietly working on less lethal varieties of knockout gas, but I'd be surprised if they managed to develop something that was effective and safe over a broad enough dosage range to be deployable.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Too often, people look at the "oo-aah" factor, and leave the proven technologies behind.
It couldn't be too hard to provide CCTV into the forward cabin, back to the cockpit - whether an actual screen (does the cockpit need more clutter?) or as an input into an automated pattern-match system. Any manic activity in the cabin gets noticed; any attempt to gain entry to the cockpit is checked against a video screen... however the mechnics function.
Providing a wireless system for "discrete notification" into the cockpit? As others have pointed out - how long until that gets hacked, or until lack of maintenance and/or interest renders it useless?
CCTV is widely deployed, secure, etc, etc. A cabin looks pretty tame 99% of the time, and if it isn't calm and organised, the captain probably needs to know anyway.
With each breath in, a flower somewhere opens; with each breath out, a flower withers away. In between lies beauty.
It doesn't matter if the details published or not. Some of the 9/11 highjackers had gone to flight schools. They were familiar with the operation of the airliner and the crew. Secret procedures leak one way or another.
;)
Anyone concerned with highjacking another plane would probably know about "secret" tricks like wristbands or hidden alarm buttons.
I think this is all kind of moot, however, because anyone highjacking an airliner these days is going to get beaten to death by angry passengers who have nothing to lose. The phrase "I have a knife, I am taking over this plane!" no longer has power.
I do like that heart monitor idea: that would help the pilots keep tabs on the hot new flight attendant's vitals.
(I am not being a pig: there are female pilots and male flight attendants too.)
Sig for hire.
Already been done. The Peruvian aviation authority was not amused.
Cockpit has only one door which goes to the outside. No access from the passenger area at all. I believe there are already planes like this.
I've never understood how planes can be hijacked in the first place without explosives - they have a 100+ people in a small, cramped space, making firearms pretty useless, and the passengers know that they will propably be killed anyway if the plane falls or hits something, so why not just storm the hijacker - or just throw him with bags or something ? It just doesn't add up...
Because hijacked planes did not hit anything until 9-11. Mostly, the hijackers wanted to achieve some other goal, either getting somewhere, having someone released from some prison, or just plain money. They wanted to survive as well, and for this, they had to land the plane somewhere (where they were vulnerable to intervention by special forces). Killing everyone in the plane (and others on the ground) has not always been the aim of airplane hijackings.
Life is just nature's way of keeping meat fresh.
This is just one more paranoial waste of money without increasing security. Lets face it - the real security is the bullet-proof reinforced flight deck door with CCTV surveillance of the entry area.
The problem with a secret alert device is a) secrets don't remain secret if you mandate it for the entire industry and b) what is the pilot supposed to do if he gets alerted of "suspicious activity" (We have often "suspicious activities" aka unruly passengers)
The pilot can not go back to check it out. He can not just dive to the next airport because it might have been a false alarm or the situation can be resolved by the flight attendants. If every alarm would lead to an diversion the system could be easily misused for a DoS attack.
So in the end he would just have to wait until 1) someone shows up at the cockpit door and tries to force entry: Hijack (better: attempted hijack) or 2) noone shows up: Situtation resolved.
This is the same as the usless keypads on the flight deck door mandated by the FAA. Two buttons would have been enough: regular entry and emergency entry.
The security is not that only the flight attendants know the secret keycodes - with a knive to their throat they will type in the correct one anyway. The security is the video surveillance to check the area from the flight deck. (To be fair: the keypads have the advantage that passengers in search for a toilet will not accidentaly press the "emergency door bell" - which would mean immediate landing)
Back to a) Why secrets won't work: Like every equipment on board it has to be approved by the FAA which makes it expensive which results in only very few vendors offering a system. And they will offer it to any airline, including Saudia Airways, Pakistani Airways and Ariana Afghan Airways and many other. It would be naive to think that intelligent terrorists do not have contacts in the airlines and can not get access to the devices.
In the end most airlines will anyway use the loophole of some "secret" intercom procedure which they have to document and distribute to thousands of FAs and Pilots.
This is just another stupid TSA regulation in a long line of stupid TSA regulations - like not being allowed to stand in a line in front of a toilet.
X IMPRIMITE "SALVE TERRA!"
XX ITE AD X
Then they could use some other means... say, a device that would measure the wetness of the wearer's underwear. If they piss themselves, it could set the alarm off! I'm not sure what you would call this technology, but I suppose it just *DEPENDS* on the creator. ;)
As I understand it, all Israeli El Al planes have a separate external entrance for the pilots, and the cockpit is not accessible from the cabin. Why would you need access to the cockpit from the cabin, or vice versa, during the flight anyway?
Nothing worse than now, as long as the system is such that the trusted pilot must enable ground control from the plane:
Ground control taken over, plane not taken over: no problem, trusted pilot flies.
Ground control not taken over, plane taken over: no problem, ground control flies plane (provided trusted pilot had enough time to transfer control).
Ground control taken over, plane taken over: terrorists win, but that's also the case now. So the new system add security without introducing new weaknesses (except those introduced by added complexity).
Flown much recently? As a result of 9-11. cockpit doors are locked in flight, and have been for a few years. At the same time, existing doors were replaced by sturdy metal doors to prevent someone from simply chopping their way through to the crew.
Your notion of adding a second external door would require redesign and refit of every aircraft, which is unlikely ffor financial and aerodynamic reasons. Also, the crew needs access to the passenger section, especially during non-hijacking emergencies..
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Perhaps you might to think for a moment... (I'm sorry, but idiotic statements like yours really annoy me)
They can use their own computerized equipment because it has gone through a lengthy test cycle with that airplane and been proven not to interfere with the *very* sensitive analog instrument landing system equipment still in use at most airports (and which is also often used on takeoff).
There have been reports of interference with ILS recievers from various electronic equipment. When the downside of screwing up is that hundreds of people die and millions of dollars worth of airplane turn into scrap metal, you tend to be a bit conservative in safety issues.
Oh, and when the flight crew tells you to do something, do it. Their instructions have the force of law. Interfereing with the safe completeion of a flight will wind up with your spending some serious time in PMITA federal prison.
(I'm sure your next question is why don't they upgrade their equipment to something less prone to interference -- they are in the process of doing that -- it takes many years of testing to assure safety (see paragraph above concerning downsides of screwups). These very long dev and test cycles assure extremely high prices (cheapest avaition GPS is about 10 times more expensive than a regular civillian one, and that unit is marked "Not for instrument flight", Instrument rated GPS recievers are even more expensive). And these high prices therefore assure very slow adoption of the new technology.)
Ian Ameline
I just returned from a vacation to Europe and was shocked and amazed that the cabin had no cameras of any sort. I mean, cameras are so good and so small these days that there really is no reason not to. We each had interactive screens in the backs of our seats, but they can't put in a couple cheapo webcams?
I know cameras only show you the bad stuff happening and don't do anything to prevent it, but tipping the pilots off sooner than later can only be better than what we have now.
The other thing I wondered is... couldn't the pilots suddenly go into a dive, rendering the hijackers walking around helpless? Sure you'd surprise that guy in the bathroom and a couple others (including stewards/stewardesses), but it'd be a small price to pay, I'd think.
the same shit that happened on the Pennsylvania flight 93 will now be standard procedure...
You are underestimating the US government. The Pennsylvania flight 93 was shot down. I have a friend who was listening to a police scanner down there at the time, and it was quite clear from the radio traffic that it was shot down, and the passengers had nothing to do with it. Jumping the terrorists is the best thing the passengers could do in a situation like that, no doubt, but it just wasn't what's happened.
If you don't believe me (why would you?) think about this: The official version said that the passengers used their cell phones to find out what the hijackers were up to, and that put them (the passengers) up to trying to take over. Please try using your cell phone on a plane next tiem you fly. Don't worry - it won't interfere with the planes' equipment a bit - the reason they ask you not to use the phone in flight is that they haven't tested all types of cell phones against the equipment, but there are no known cases of interference. Turn on your cell phone and try to get a connection. It won't work, unless the plane is very near the ground - because the cell towers have directional antennas that only work along the ground.