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Remote Control To Prevent Aircraft Hijacking
Snad writes "The UK's Evening Standard is reporting that Boeing plans to roll out aircraft remote control systems in a bid to eliminate the threat of terrorist hijackings, and prevent any repetition of the events of September 11 2001. 'Scientists at aircraft giant Boeing are testing the tamper-proof autopilot system which uses state-of-the-art computer and satellite technology. It will be activated by the pilot flicking a simple switch or by pressure sensors fitted to the cockpit door that will respond to any excessive force as terrorists try to break into the flight deck. Once triggered, no one on board will be able to deactivate the system. Currently, all autopilots are manually switched on and off at the discretion of pilots. A threatened airliner could be flown to a secure military base or a commercial airport, where it would touch down using existing landing aids known as 'autoland function'.'"
Remote control systems should simply augment human control systems. In this scenario, the human control system is much more effective. Specifically, "passengers beating the living shit out of all hijackers."
Won't terrorists instead try and find ways to take over the remote control system? Why limit yourself to simply crashing one plane when you can crash them all.
Why not autotakeoff as well, then we can just eliminate the human pilots altogether for nonmilitary aircraft?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
All they need is a case of baseball bats on the plane. "In case of a cabin seizure, a small bat will fall from the ceiling. Take the bat, and beat the shit out of the hijacker until he is unconscious"
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
No remote access allowed unless the pilot flips a switch in the plane.
what concerns me is: 1) it could be accidentally triggered under certain conditions i.e. someone nudges the door like in a fall bracing against the door etc. 2) if an accident did happen, normal flight would incur excessive delays [acceptable or not?] 3) under what conditions would the system not detect a hijacking, ie can it be triggered from the ground in case of failure? 4) human error- suppose the system is bypassed by the pilot- ie it isnt switched on or the door is kept open etc. what then? how would these problems be addressed and how would it affect the normal operations in flight?
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
How about locking the f***ing cabin door??!!! Doesn't cost anything, no one gets hijacked. Instead lets make a remote control terminal to fly the plane into a building. Only good old fat government defense contracts can bring us such stupidity. Heck, lets give the contract to Diebold and let the central control program be an Access VBA App on a Windows machine connected to the internet.
How much cash and resources do we have to spend on 9/11 related expenditures before we realize that it's going overboard? It was a terrible day, the worst in my life and it didn't even affect me personally (i.e. I didn't know anyone who died.) But I think that the spending has gone overboard. I'm guessing that there will be serious safety issues related to this system anyhow.
Skyhook is a book centered around this concept. The interesting part was that they wouldn't actually deploy this system in commercial aircraft, they'd just have a press release to make people think they had.
(And no, that isn't a referrer link where I get money. I don't know why it has 'ref=')
Oh, I'm sure this could never POSSIBLY go wrong.
The mind *boggles*.
But it'll make for some great disaster movies, where Bruce Willis has to hack his way through a bulkhead to cut the wires for the autopilot before Boeing Jon can fly the remote-hijacked plane to Norway where all the passengers would, um, well, have something awful happen involving blonde women and glaciers.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Autopilot systems that can take off and land large commercial aircraft already exist and are commonly used (they are called "CAT III" autopilots). If a pilot is feeling lazy, all he or she must do is program the flight computer and taxi the aircraft to the runway -- the aircraft will take off, fly, and land at the desired destination without any input from the pilot.
This new system seems to be a way of locking-in the autopilot function so terrorists cannot manually fly the plane after the pilot triggers an alarm. Seems like a good idea to me.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot as always.
this is a seriously good idea. *but* wouldnt the terrorists just read the manufacturing plans like they glean the flying manuals and train in six months prior to the ambush? i mean, it's probably something that could be dismantled during flight. some seriously ingenious work would have to go into the making of the system to prevent this from being taken apart.
great to see we still have some fresh ideas appearing.
Why UNIX?
this is a vehicle for the US Govt (- and legal system, which sometimes is scarier yet) to harvest wanted people who may have committed no crime in their own countries and bring them to the USA involuntarily
Do you seriously think they wouldn't use it?
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Buy a clue, please.
Autoland had been in use on commercial aircraft for over thirty years. It's routinely used for landing at places like Heathrow which are frequently foggy. It's so accurate that they had to introduce some dither into it because the runways were starting to deteriorate what with landing gear smacking into the exact same spot landing after landing.
-- Alastair
Hijackers simply start shooting passengers until they remotely fly him where he wants to go.
Fanatics are irrational by design...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
We don't need this. If anything genuinely good came out of 9/11, it's this: passengers will *NOT* sit idly by while a hijacker goes and tries to seize control of an aircraft, as they know that their lives would likely be forfeit anyways if they did. It was a very costly wake-up call, and although I would never go so far as to say it was worth it, I think it's safe bet that no hijacker will ever be able to take control of a passenger aircraft ever again... at least not over USA soil.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
even without bats the next deranged whackjob to attempt hijack of a u.s. plane will probably be beaten to death pulped beyond identification by any visual means.
Something like that happened just recently: Hijacker didn't speak French. Captain did the landing announcement and in the French version told the passengers and crew he was going to do a very hard landing and for the stews and any strong male passengers to rush the cockpit and subdue the hijacker.
He hit the brakes hard. The hijacker (who was standing) tumbled over. The stews and passengers broke in and jumped him. The stews poured boiling water over him while the passengers beat him until subdued.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
With your idea:
"One passenger dies every minute until the door is unlocked".
Duh.
With the new system:
"One passenger dies every minute until the fancy auto-pilot is turned off".
Another duh.
Any questions, Einstein?
Middle eastern airlines have had this for a long time, it's not too difficult to think of, unless you're plain stupid. Planes with NO PASSAGE BETWEEN FLIGHT DECK AND PASSENGERS. Is that hard? I guess it requires another exterior door, bathroom for pilots, food service for pilots (read "fridge"), etc. But ultimately, the simplest solution is probably the best. Why can't people even think of this? Well, I guess it's an easy retrofit that you couldn't charge an arm and a leg for.
Less look fast, more go fast.
You are attempting to engage the Remote Control System.
Cancel or Allow?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
You are absolutely correct, military and some civilian aircraft already have this feature. However, a terrorist activating a jammer could never happen because it is against FAA rules to turn on a transmitter during flight.
That's autoland. It'll even steer the aircraft down the runway, and brake if it's equipped with autobrake. Totally hands off. How else would you land in zero-zero fog?
-- Alastair
"You can't fly any lower describes an advanced ground contact avoidance system developed in Sweden and tested on F16s. This is really impressive.
After moderate checks of the system at shallow dive angles and an aborted run or two, Prosser simulated several fatal mishaps. The first replicated a pilot flying on night-vision goggles (NVG) and losing situational awareness. With Auto-GCAS minimum descent altitude set at 500-ft. AGL (a medium-risk test condition), Prosser rolled into a partially inverted 5g turn, then back to a 90-deg. bank before relaxing his grip on the stick. The mishap pilot had lost the night horizon and, thinking he was approximately wings-level, let the nose fall. He was unknowingly diving toward the ground. Similar NVG-related accidents have killed F-16 and A-10 pilots.
While the flat Rosamond Dry Lake raced upward at us, filling my out-the-canopy field-of-view, I glanced at my back-seat HUD repeater and saw two large chevrons moving toward the center of the display. Their arrow-points touched, and we immediately snap-rolled to wings-level and pulled sharply to about 10 deg. nose-up. When the "You got it!" annunciation sounded, we were climbing at about 317 kt. and 2,940 ft., roughly 600+ ft. above the lakebed--an artificially high altitude established for safety reasons.
This thing is dealing with flight situations much tougher than anything the big transports do. It's designed not to interfere with typical attack aircraft maneuvers. We flew about 200 ft. above the ground at 520-560 kt., popping over high-tension power lines, hills and small ridges. Slipping through cuts in the desert mountains, rolling inverted to pull down the backside of ridges, and carving around the sides of rocky hills, Prosser demonstrated that a pilot could fly a normal, low-level tactical mission without experiencing a single nuisance fly-up. But go a little too low, and there's a "speedbump" as the system nudges the aircraft up a bit.
The system turns off when you're set up for landing: slow speed, wheels down, flaps down.
This would have saved United 93, where they had a fight in the cockpit. If the computers take over when the plane is headed into the ground, a number of situations become survivable. Not just hijackings; crashes due to pilot distraction or navigational error; what's called "controlled flight into terrain".
Couldn't this system make hijacking more likely? Say terrorists take over a plane. Knowing they don't need them, the terrorists kill the pilots. The remote system turns on, and the terrorists say "control, take us to *insert Middle Eastern or African country here* or we start killing hostages every 10 minutes until you turn to heading 180 or what have you... maybe the developers should look into being able to control the displays in planes, but then the terrorists could also carry compasses and maps... it just doesn't sound like a very good idea to me. p.s. -hey terrorists, i have just trademarked that idea so you can't use it.
What if it weren't remote control? What if, upon activation, all that happened was the plane figured out where it was, and plotted its own course, never accepting any outside-guiding signal? the removes the threat of flying into "zombie airspace", where someone is broadcasting a hack-signal and crasing planes.
I was on a United Boeing 777 from Chicago to Seattle and visibility was so bad in Seattle that our flight wouldn't have been able to land except that the 777 has an autoland capability. It was a gentle landing but it was weird since the fog was so thick I could see anything out of the window and could only tell we landed when I felt the landing gear touchdown on the runway.
As a passenger ... and a pilot I think this is a VERY dangerous idea. More so than dealing with the terrorists in other ways.
Let me qualify myself -- I am a hobbyist when it comes to flying. Single and dual engine props are the largest I've ever flown myself, but I know a damn good landing when I see / feel one. Flying "runs in the family" as my brother does it, my father, my grandfather [did, passed away], and my Uncle is a commercial pilot himself. Growing up it was common to go and visit grandpa (or more often have him fly over to us) in the rent-a-plane type club -- why drive and deal with all the traffic? When we wanted to go downtown to the city -- just fly in. I was flying when I was six... Anyway, I digress...
On a recent commercial trip to Hawaii I can remember two specific landings that took place. One was in bad weather and the landing impressed me so much that I waited around to find out who landed the plane. The pilot proudly introduced me to his co-pilot and informed me it was his first real landing as such [flying passengers and not testing / in a simulator]. The other landing scared the hell out of me and within seconds of touching down I looked at my white-knuckled scared wife and said "somethings wrong, we're going off the runway". The weather was calm and clear -- and at the gate the pilot apologized to *everyone* over the PA system and informed us that the landing that took place was done by the emergency autopilot landing system [a scheduled test -- WITH PASSENGERS]. THANK GOD he was able to dis-engage said system and go with a hard left rudder when he did...
Due to that last landing it has been the _last_ commercial flight I've taken (or plan to take). I'll fly myself, thank you.
What do I do for a living? Ironically computer [programming] -- and I know all too well what can (and does) go wrong with these types of computer programs. There is NO WAY that all the bases and/or possibilities could be covered with our computer knowledge today.
While demonstrating one of the new remote controlled aircraft, it was pointed out that the cockpit will now be occupied by a pilot and a dog. When asked about the dog, it was explained that he was there to bite the pilot's hand off if he reached for any of the controls.
What?
There's a far simpler (and less risky) solution - two doors between the flight deck and the main cabin, so that the flight crew can always have a closed door between them and the cabin when they have to leave the cockpit. El Al's been doing this for years, and IIRC, United is on track to do so. If the cockpit can't be stormed, the airliner can't be used as a weapon.
Autopilots malfunction. That's why there's a big red button on every yoke or sidestick (not just on the flight guidance panel) - an autopilot disconnect switch. The thought of having an autopilot that you can't disconnect on every flight of every airliner is just plain scary, probability-wise.
Here's a more likely use for it: The FAA wants to raise the pilot retirement age to 65. You'll need it to land the airplane after the old geezer pilots fall asleep.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
"You weeel take deees plane to Aaafgaaaneeestaaan, or I weeeeel --"
"BEEEP - Please kindly press 1 for service in Spanish, 2 to leave a message,
3 to speak with a customer service agent, or 0 to repeat this message again..."
No one cares if a plane is diverted to Algeria. They care if it's flown into the ground or a target, which is of course something the pilots will never do no matter how many passengers are killed, for obvious reasons. Seperating pilot from passenger accomplishes only one thing, but its a very important thing. Namely, it prevents the class of hijackings in which all passengers die, and those are the ones we care about.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
While you are correct that autoland has been around since the 70s, it is far from used routinely.
Pilots use autoland only when required so due to fog (visibility below roundabout 300m, depending on aircraft type). Even at London I doubt that more than 1% of all landings are made with autoland.
And the thing about hitting the exact same spot on landing is a myth, because so many factors (weight of airplane, temperature, wind, rigging of the control surfaces to name just a few) will affect the landing spot even for an autoland that it is impossible to touch down at the same spot consistently.
Disclaimer: I earn my living flying airplanes
X IMPRIMITE "SALVE TERRA!"
XX ITE AD X
For something *that* secure, I'm sure they're using Vista. I can see it now, "It looks like you're trying to let someone take over your aircraft by remote control. Allow or deny?"
But more seriously, how could a system like that EVER be trusted? M$ spend lots of time and way more money trying to make Vista secure, and it's already cracked. Same for HD-DVD DRM. And if terrorist really can't think of anything better, they can do this:in this case the solution is a social one not a technological one. the most powerful force on a plane are its passengers.
Until something happens that incapacitates both pilots.
Wow! At last, somebody who knows "exactly" what happened on 9-11! Astonishing! Nobody else in the public has anything but theories and logical guesswork, but you actually know exactly what happened! Can I have your autograph?
-FL
"This increases their planning overhead, their budget overhead, and possibly their coordination overhead. They also have to acquire more information from more sources, and possibly design, manufacture, and smuggle aboard additional equipment."
/sarcasm
Are you expecting terrorist organisations to declare their activities are no longer economically viable and "fire" their employees ?
Maybe they can file for bankruptcy protection to stave off the inevitable...
Seriously, i doubt the extremists these systems are targeting run their operations like a corporation, or care about economics.
because so many factors (weight of airplane, temperature, wind, rigging of the control surfaces to name just a few) will affect the landing spot even for an autoland
See, now I know you don't know what you're talking about even if you are a pilot. (I'm a pilot too, but it's not my job).
The localizer and glideslope (let's skip MLS for now, although the same principle holds) are fixed with respect to the airfield. The autoland is tracking localizer and glidescope (and radar altimeter and yada yada). Weight, temperature, wind, and control surface rigging will all be factored out because the autopilot will make whatever corrections it needs to stay nailed to that approach. And if it's foggy out -- when autoland is primarily used -- there's not going to be much in the way of wind to worry about, is there?
Different aircraft types -- a Boeing 747 vs an Airbus say -- may well touch down in different spots because of the different geometry of the aircraft, but -- until they introduced dither in the system -- all 747s would touch down on each other's skid marks.
-- Alastair
--And what precision! To be able to accurately target a building which is so far away that you can't even see it is amazing. These were guys who couldn't even pass flight school. Sounds like a computer assist to me.
-FL
So what happens if the remote control station gets hijacked?
There should be a scale, like the Richter scale for earthquakes, for dumb ideas.
This one would be 11/10.
Hijacks are very, very rare so the effectiveness of this stupid idea is dominated by the failure modes. The obvious failure mode is accidental activation. This will occur much more often than an actual hijack.
So rather than being a solution, it will be just another cause of flight delays.
Different aircraft types -- a Boeing 747 vs an Airbus say -- may well touch down in different spots because of the different geometry of the aircraft, but -- until they introduced dither in the system -- all 747s would touch down on each other's skid marks.
I'm pretty sure this is an "urban myth". Approach speeds vary significantly because of aircraft mass - this alone would change where the actual touchdown was.
If you ran ten autolands under identical conditions in the same aircraft, there would be quite a spread: no need to introduce any dithering. Anyway, the last piece of evidence is that autolands are generally more restrictive in terms of landing performance (mass, temperature, wind, etc.) than manual ones on the same runway. If the accuracy could be guaranteed it would give a *commercial advantage*, something manufacturers would charge for and airlines would pay...
I say this having flown older and the latest generation of autoland equipped jets - they've come a long way but there is still some to go. I did two autolands last week on a 777, both great but quite different in the way they were flown by the autopilot. You could program the automatics to land in almost exactly the same place every time but it would be akin to a landing on an aircraft carrier: not much fun for the passengers!
Not quite. At some point during the autoland, usually around 50 to 20 ft above the runway the aircraft does not follow the glideslope anymore. Instead it will do a preprogrammed flare following a fixed programm like "pull the yoke back by 2 inches and wait for touchdown" (I know that it is a little bit more complex than that). Any (vertical) disturbances during those last few seconds are not corrected and will lead to different touchdown points.
I am not saying that autoland systems do not have a dither (like from the sampling rate of the radio altimeter), but I doubt that it was put in intentionally. It is system inherent.
X IMPRIMITE "SALVE TERRA!"
XX ITE AD X
Here's one well-researched and very thoughtful rubuttal to the Popular Mechanics article. The Popular Mechanics article is widely considered too silly to even consider. --There are more logical flaws in that article than can be forgiven in any intelligent discussion.
Cheers!
-FL