Hijack proof airplane
Posted in Tech by Dan at 10:03 am
This post was published 3 years 2 months 10 days ago and its content may not be valid anymore.European scientists at BAE Systems are perfecting concepts for a passenger jet that CANNOT BE HIJACKED. Fingerprint systems allow only approved pilots to fly the planes. Onboard systems override control to avoid crashing into buildings. A special computer system watches passengers and detects suspicious behavior. When all else fails, a computer can take control from whoever is flying it and land the airplane at the nearest airport. [via]
Am I the only person concerned about a computer taking over if it decides the pilot is not flying the plane correctly. Can anyone say SKYNET here?
first, i agree totaly on the skynet part, actually thats a double pun, skynet as in the machienes will take over, and skynet as in these planes will never fall out of ths sky, the computers are the net!
anyway, it seems like the people over at BAE have forgoten one thing, sure no one can hijack the plane from inside the plane, but what about outside the plane, since this plane is basically controleld byb a computer, how hard could it be before some hacker comes up with something to hack the software?
If you’ve ridden on a plane in the last decade (and that plane was about a 767 or larger) you’ve gone into the holding pattern and landed completely under the control of the computer.
The pilot is there as backup, but planes are landed by computer these days.
I would rather see a secure connection to a drone pilot on the ground to be honest. They fly hours of unmanned missions every year in the military, how hard could it be to hook up a 747 to the same secure network, and let a ground pilot in a safe place override the system incase a pilot is incapacitated.
However, I computer flying a hijacked plane is still better than a hijacker flying a hijacked plane… I’m all for it… and technically, computers fly planes 95% of the time anyway people…. autopilot has been around and used for years, the pilots sit up there in the cock pit and sip scotch on the rocks and discuss politics while we assume they are flying the plane ;) .
great… it’s hijack proof unless the hijacker is a hacker