RE: OT: Terrorism

["Paul Gordon" <paul_gordon@xxxxxxx>]

I was discussing this very thing with SWMBO last night, saying that there
must be numerous technologies which could be employed on a plane to ensure
that ONLY the flight crew (or authorised ground crew) are able to excercise
any control over the aircraft.

I'm thinking of things like:
Dead mans handle type systems, using biometric recognition, - maybe a
retina
scanner built in to the pilot & co-pilots headsets, or fingerprint
scanners
built into the control yoke. - thus making it impossible for anyone other
than one of the 2 pilots to fly the plane.

Or things like the watches that joggers wear that measure the pulse rate,
worn by both pilots, and linked by radio to the aircraft telemtry systems,
-
if either signal stops being received (i.e either pilot is killed, or even
if the watch is removed from the pilot when the craft is anywhere other
than
on the ground), then the controls are locked out and can only be unlocked
by
the other pilot in conjunction with the ground-based controllers.

Perhaps it's also time to consider putting self-destruct systems on planes,
under the exclusive control of the 2 pilots (authorised by systems such as
above). - I'm sure the crew of any of the hijacked aircraft yesterday would
have used such a system had it been available to them.... (it always seems
to work on Star Trek)

Or how about remote control of the plane by the ground crew? - that stuff
must be 90% there already, - there's "auto-pilot" for a start,
not to
mention the various landing control systems that virtually land the plane
without pilot intervention... all it takes is a little modification to
allow
those kinds of systems to be used to "take over" a plane from the
ground and
fly it from there. - The controllers must have been able to see and plot
the
path of the 1st 2 planes long before they actually hit the towers... If
they
could have invoked such a system, they could have forced the planes into a
high climb and steered them out to sea long before they were allowed into
airspace over a populated area...

Just my £0.02 - what good is the advancement of science and technology if
it
is not employed for the benefit of mankind?

Paul G.


>I also want to see the hijacking of planes
>being made impossible. Surely it is not beyond us to prevent a
terrorist
>from gaining the controls of a passenger jet, even if it means locking
the
>cabin door from the inside for the entire flight. Even if a small
number of
>terrorist could actually manage to kill all the passengers and crew
with
>pen
>knives, they could not have killed thousands without access to the
cockpit.
>
>Graham


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