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Planes today can both fly and land themselves. You could easily give ground control an override code that shuts off manual control completely and then flies to the nearest airport with an ILS or whatever auto land system the plane uses.
If you want to you could also do a "trigger" so that ground control can't simply take over the plane at any time but they can activate the system and if the pilot tries to crash the plane either by going into the ground or going into a direction that will make the plane run out of fuel the system activates and goes to an airport instead.
I'm sure you could get creative (fucking up a landing or takeoff for example) but that would probably mean your co-pilot is in the cockpit to stop you.
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On March 27 2015 04:46 lord_nibbler wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 04:37 Millitron wrote: The only real solution is to include a way for crew in the passenger compartment to communicate with ground control, and give ground control an undeniable way to unlock the door. And how would the ground control know whether the call from the passenger side of the airplane is real and not faked / enforced? This problem is not easy to solve. Even the rule that a flight attendant temporally replaces the pilot that leaves the cockpit ('2 man rule'), does not prevent all situations. What's keeping the suicidal pilot from killing the flight attendant then and there, she is going to die minutes later anyway? Or what about a suicidal flight attendant? Now you have to vet every flight attendant as well? In a coerced call situation, the pilot would be talking to ground crews. Ground control would know it was a coerced call because the pilot still in the cockpit would be cooperating with ATC.
I guess the only other option is to automate the whole thing. We trust drones with dropping bombs, why not ferrying passengers?
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On March 27 2015 05:03 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 04:46 lord_nibbler wrote:On March 27 2015 04:37 Millitron wrote: The only real solution is to include a way for crew in the passenger compartment to communicate with ground control, and give ground control an undeniable way to unlock the door. And how would the ground control know whether the call from the passenger side of the airplane is real and not faked / enforced? This problem is not easy to solve. Even the rule that a flight attendant temporally replaces the pilot that leaves the cockpit ('2 man rule'), does not prevent all situations. What's keeping the suicidal pilot from killing the flight attendant then and there, she is going to die minutes later anyway? Or what about a suicidal flight attendant? Now you have to vet every flight attendant as well? In a coerced call situation, the pilot would be talking to ground crews. Ground control would know it was a coerced call because the pilot still in the cockpit would be cooperating with ATC. I guess the only other option is to automate the whole thing. We trust drones with dropping bombs, why not ferrying passengers? Considering the precision of said drones I wouldn't take a fully automated plane anytime soon :D
On March 27 2015 05:02 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: Planes today can both fly and land themselves. You could easily give ground control an override code that shuts off manual control completely and then flies to the nearest airport with an ILS or whatever auto land system the plane uses.
If you want to you could also do a "trigger" so that ground control can't simply take over the plane at any time but they can activate the system and if the pilot tries to crash the plane either by going into the ground or going into a direction that will make the plane run out of fuel the system activates and goes to an airport instead.
I'm sure you could get creative (fucking up a landing or takeoff for example) but that would probably mean your co-pilot is in the cockpit to stop you. But then airliners would use this to supress copilots.
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On March 27 2015 05:06 OtherWorld wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 05:03 Millitron wrote:On March 27 2015 04:46 lord_nibbler wrote:On March 27 2015 04:37 Millitron wrote: The only real solution is to include a way for crew in the passenger compartment to communicate with ground control, and give ground control an undeniable way to unlock the door. And how would the ground control know whether the call from the passenger side of the airplane is real and not faked / enforced? This problem is not easy to solve. Even the rule that a flight attendant temporally replaces the pilot that leaves the cockpit ('2 man rule'), does not prevent all situations. What's keeping the suicidal pilot from killing the flight attendant then and there, she is going to die minutes later anyway? Or what about a suicidal flight attendant? Now you have to vet every flight attendant as well? In a coerced call situation, the pilot would be talking to ground crews. Ground control would know it was a coerced call because the pilot still in the cockpit would be cooperating with ATC. I guess the only other option is to automate the whole thing. We trust drones with dropping bombs, why not ferrying passengers? Considering the precision of said drones I wouldn't take a fully automated plane anytime soon :D Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 05:02 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: Planes today can both fly and land themselves. You could easily give ground control an override code that shuts off manual control completely and then flies to the nearest airport with an ILS or whatever auto land system the plane uses.
If you want to you could also do a "trigger" so that ground control can't simply take over the plane at any time but they can activate the system and if the pilot tries to crash the plane either by going into the ground or going into a direction that will make the plane run out of fuel the system activates and goes to an airport instead.
I'm sure you could get creative (fucking up a landing or takeoff for example) but that would probably mean your co-pilot is in the cockpit to stop you. But then airliners would use this to supress copilots.
Isn't there laws about minimum flight crews? Pilots today spend like 99 % of their time monitoring the autopilot anyway (they don't even do the landings anymore, there's even rules about doing mandatory landings to keep people on the ball).
In theory you could automate the entire thing but since we want to have pilots "just in case" and the minimum safe number is obviously 2 (in case 1 goes crazy) then I don't think the laws will change anytime soon.
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Problem is you got to start trusting someone in the first place. Crew, Pilots... I guess in this case the first officer decided rather spontanious to kill himself, as the opprtunity was there. "2 man rule" would may have prevented this, because those people usually don't attack up front. Same poeple drive on motorways in the wrong direction on purpose.
Since any modern aircraft is 100% FBW, you could design a secondary cockpit in every plane, with 4 pilots total. Both cockpits can fly the plane, and if 2 pilots + 1 crew agree they can disable either one.
Or seperate the cockpit into two cells. 1 Pilot and 1 Crew can vote on disable controls of the other pilot.
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On March 27 2015 05:11 plgElwood wrote: Problem is you got to start trusting someone in the first place. Crew, Pilots... I guess in this case the first officer decided rather spontanious to kill himself, as the opprtunity was there. "2 man rule" would may have prevented this, because those people usually don't attack up front. Same poeple drive on motorways in the wrong direction on purpose.
Since any modern aircraft is 100% FBW, you could design a secondary cockpit in every plane, with 4 pilots total. Both cockpits can fly the plane, and if 2 pilots + 1 crew agree they can disable either one.
Or seperate the cockpit into two cells. 1 Pilot and 1 Crew can vote on disable controls of the other pilot.
Captain in an modern airplane is there to make sure the computer doesn't fail. The co-pilot in a modern airplane is there to make sure the captain doesn't fail. It's completely logical that the computer (with some help from the ground) makes sure that the co-pilot doesn't fail.
Then you need either both pilots to fail or the computer and one pilot to fail. Both scenarios are extremely unlikely.
As you said, planes are 100 % FBW. If pilot(s) go crazy you disable them and let the computer land the plane.
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On March 27 2015 05:02 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: Planes today can both fly and land themselves. You could easily give ground control an override code that shuts off manual control completely and then flies to the nearest airport with an ILS or whatever auto land system the plane uses.
If you want to you could also do a "trigger" so that ground control can't simply take over the plane at any time but they can activate the system and if the pilot tries to crash the plane either by going into the ground or going into a direction that will make the plane run out of fuel the system activates and goes to an airport instead.
I'm sure you could get creative (fucking up a landing or takeoff for example) but that would probably mean your co-pilot is in the cockpit to stop you. eh even with a second person in it won't necessarily prevent it. This isn't the first time it happened. I will try to find links but there was one greek airliner crash that went down due to a suicidal pilot and the other pilot was there. The psycho pilot was trying to drive the thing into the ground, the non crazy one was trying to go the opposite way, they crashed
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On March 27 2015 04:26 xtorn wrote: Another solution is to put the door under a lock code that only the two pilots know, so that even if one wants to do this the other can enter the code and reach the cockpit easy and fast. Trying to break down the door takes precious time.
There should be no way to deny the code so that they can enter at any moment. There should be normally no reason why the cockpit should be unreachable for any of the pilots, only for the passengers. This isn't a better solution, and it isn't even necessarily as good as what we have now.
If a pilot can open the locked door from the outside, that applies just as much to a crazy pilot breaking into the cockpit he was locked out of as it does to a pilot trying to get into the cockpit because a crazy pilot locked him out. And when the pilot is outside of the cockpit, bad people can coerce him to open the door, which defeats the point of impenetrable doors to protect the cockpit from hijackings in the first place.
As zatic said this happens almost never. Let me put it this way, where is the fuss over bus drivers going crazy and committing suicide? Or people taking hostages with buses, what are the TSA or equivalent agencies doing? It's not about the door or passwords or anything, human error is just always going to be a factor.
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On March 27 2015 03:31 QuanticHawk wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 03:25 Millitron wrote:On March 27 2015 03:18 Dangermousecatdog wrote: How does this fit the meaning of a terrorist attack in any way shape or form? I don't know the guy's politics, but he killed ~150 people. For all I know, he may have had a motive beyond just suicidal thoughts. ...at which point he would then be classified as a terrorist? I'm not sure what you are getting at. This is why they're going through his house and stuff. Was he a terrorist, if so, was he connected to any groups, etc. The question is why you are even presuming it is possibly a terrorist attack, not why he could possibly not be. You might as well ask, "was it a classic mental illness, or was he just wanting to see if he can weave between mountains?" instead. There's no reason for you to suggest it is a terrorist attack, just as there is no reason for me to suggest that he was curiously stupid.
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On March 27 2015 05:17 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 04:26 xtorn wrote: Another solution is to put the door under a lock code that only the two pilots know, so that even if one wants to do this the other can enter the code and reach the cockpit easy and fast. Trying to break down the door takes precious time.
There should be no way to deny the code so that they can enter at any moment. There should be normally no reason why the cockpit should be unreachable for any of the pilots, only for the passengers. This isn't a better solution, and it isn't even necessarily as good as what we have now. If a pilot can open the locked door from the outside, that applies just as much to a crazy pilot breaking into the cockpit he was locked out of as it does to a pilot trying to get into the cockpit because a crazy pilot locked him out. And when the pilot is outside of the cockpit, bad people can coerce him to open the door, which defeats the point of impenetrable doors to protect the cockpit from hijackings in the first place. As zatic said this happens almost never. Let me put it this way, where is the fuss over bus drivers going crazy and committing suicide? Or people taking hostages with buses, what are the TSA or equivalent agencies doing? It's not about the door or passwords or anything, human error is just always going to be a factor. How about this. You have an acetylene torch or something similar in a very well locked container. The container can only be unlocked by ground crews. If a crazed pilot is in the cockpit and has locked the door, ground crews unlock the container and the stewardesses or other pilot can cut the door open. This prevents a coerced or crazed pilot from opening the door because ground crews have the final say. If a sane pilot is the one locked in, he'll be cooperating with ground crews. It should be immediately apparent which side of the door the crazed or coerced guy is on.
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On March 27 2015 05:17 QuanticHawk wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 05:02 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: Planes today can both fly and land themselves. You could easily give ground control an override code that shuts off manual control completely and then flies to the nearest airport with an ILS or whatever auto land system the plane uses.
If you want to you could also do a "trigger" so that ground control can't simply take over the plane at any time but they can activate the system and if the pilot tries to crash the plane either by going into the ground or going into a direction that will make the plane run out of fuel the system activates and goes to an airport instead.
I'm sure you could get creative (fucking up a landing or takeoff for example) but that would probably mean your co-pilot is in the cockpit to stop you. eh even with a second person in it won't necessarily prevent it. This isn't the first time it happened. I will try to find links but there was one greek airliner crash that went down due to a suicidal pilot and the other pilot was there. The psycho pilot was trying to drive the thing into the ground, the non crazy one was trying to go the opposite way, they crashed
True. There's always a way to crash something going very fast up in the air.
But it would give the "good guy" an edge if he could start yelling at control to put the plane on autopilot while he was struggling with the controls. Alternatively have the option for both pilots to engage the system from inside the cockpit on their own. The plane can go on autopilot on a safe altitude and either touch down on it's own or get handed back to the pilot from the ground if he subdues Captain Crazy.
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On March 27 2015 05:23 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 05:17 oBlade wrote:On March 27 2015 04:26 xtorn wrote: Another solution is to put the door under a lock code that only the two pilots know, so that even if one wants to do this the other can enter the code and reach the cockpit easy and fast. Trying to break down the door takes precious time.
There should be no way to deny the code so that they can enter at any moment. There should be normally no reason why the cockpit should be unreachable for any of the pilots, only for the passengers. This isn't a better solution, and it isn't even necessarily as good as what we have now. If a pilot can open the locked door from the outside, that applies just as much to a crazy pilot breaking into the cockpit he was locked out of as it does to a pilot trying to get into the cockpit because a crazy pilot locked him out. And when the pilot is outside of the cockpit, bad people can coerce him to open the door, which defeats the point of impenetrable doors to protect the cockpit from hijackings in the first place. As zatic said this happens almost never. Let me put it this way, where is the fuss over bus drivers going crazy and committing suicide? Or people taking hostages with buses, what are the TSA or equivalent agencies doing? It's not about the door or passwords or anything, human error is just always going to be a factor. How about this. You have an acetylene torch or something similar in a very well locked container. The container can only be unlocked by ground crews. If a crazed pilot is in the cockpit and has locked the door, ground crews unlock the container and the stewardesses or other pilot can cut the door open. This prevents a coerced or crazed pilot from opening the door because ground crews have the final say. If a sane pilot is the one locked in, he'll be cooperating with ground crews. It should be immediately apparent which side of the door the crazed or coerced guy is on.
you need a faster solution to get in the blocked cockpit, clock is ticking rapidly while you work on torching the door
time means lifes saved; when you get in the cockpit you also need time to assess the situation and put the plane back on track
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On March 27 2015 05:02 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: Planes today can both fly and land themselves. You could easily give ground control an override code that shuts off manual control completely and then flies to the nearest airport with an ILS or whatever auto land system the plane uses. They can take off and land themselves, but only small planes in calm conditions. There are a lot of crazy and dangerous to land airports around the world. Not to mention, what hapens in an emergency? Who gets to send the overide code? Where is the overide control placed? Who has access? Trust me what you just said is not a good idea.
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Every way to open the door without the cockpit being consent undermines the idea of reinforced cockpit door in the first place. A torch or an axe working on the door would just cause the pilot to steepen the descent or disabling FEP and do drastic maneuvers.
But there could be a chance, first of all you need a full, independent radio in the cabin. If there is nobody answering from the cockpit, an override code could be provided that can even surpass "lock" switch. Additional info could be gained from ACARS and transponder signal.
But you still got to trust your pilots and crew.
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On March 27 2015 05:23 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 05:17 oBlade wrote:On March 27 2015 04:26 xtorn wrote: Another solution is to put the door under a lock code that only the two pilots know, so that even if one wants to do this the other can enter the code and reach the cockpit easy and fast. Trying to break down the door takes precious time.
There should be no way to deny the code so that they can enter at any moment. There should be normally no reason why the cockpit should be unreachable for any of the pilots, only for the passengers. This isn't a better solution, and it isn't even necessarily as good as what we have now. If a pilot can open the locked door from the outside, that applies just as much to a crazy pilot breaking into the cockpit he was locked out of as it does to a pilot trying to get into the cockpit because a crazy pilot locked him out. And when the pilot is outside of the cockpit, bad people can coerce him to open the door, which defeats the point of impenetrable doors to protect the cockpit from hijackings in the first place. As zatic said this happens almost never. Let me put it this way, where is the fuss over bus drivers going crazy and committing suicide? Or people taking hostages with buses, what are the TSA or equivalent agencies doing? It's not about the door or passwords or anything, human error is just always going to be a factor. How about this. You have an acetylene torch or something similar in a very well locked container. The container can only be unlocked by ground crews. If a crazed pilot is in the cockpit and has locked the door, ground crews unlock the container and the stewardesses or other pilot can cut the door open. This prevents a coerced or crazed pilot from opening the door because ground crews have the final say. If a sane pilot is the one locked in, he'll be cooperating with ground crews. It should be immediately apparent which side of the door the crazed or coerced guy is on. If you had a satellite connection* in the cabin by which someone outside the cockpit could contact the ground without the person in the cockpit disabling it, where the ground could electronically unlock a box with a torch/hatchet/minigun/whatever tool you think the copilot would need, instead of this convoluted RPG quest of contacting ground, they unlock a box, you get the torch, tear down the door, why would they not just remotely override the door lock...?
*kind of necessary for when your plane is in the middle of the Pacific ocean and has no radio contact with the ground, especially no contact with whatever specific place you put to have remote control of cockpit doors on every flying airliner
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On March 27 2015 05:31 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 05:02 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: Planes today can both fly and land themselves. You could easily give ground control an override code that shuts off manual control completely and then flies to the nearest airport with an ILS or whatever auto land system the plane uses. They can take off and land themselves, but only small planes in calm conditions. There are a lot of crazy and dangerous to land airports around the world. Not to mention, what hapens in an emergency? Who gets to send the overide code? Where is the overide control placed? Who has access? Trust me what you just said is not a good idea.
You know what also can't land itself? A plane that's getting crashed by the pilot.
The plane doesn't have to land at a dangerous airport. It can take the best one within the fuel range it has. If it has to try because it's out of fuel it still beats 100 % chance of death because of crazy. Override control is integrated into the planes computer which has a specific encrypted code in it and the system has access to both the autopilot, FBW as well as navigation systems. In case of an emergency there's already more than one flight controller on the case. If 2 (or 3 or 4,5,6 however many you think is necessary) enter the flight number and their personal code the encrypted code is sent to the plane which activates the system. The personal codes are sent to the airports computer in order to retrieve the encrypted override code and send it to the plane. This deactivates FBW, makes the plane check which airports are in fuel range, selects one airport, plots a course in the autopilot to get there and put the plane in the correct approach angle and activates auto-landing to scan for ILS or whatever system it has.
If the plane is out of radio range and doesn't have satellite communications for some reason then you can't activate the system and your fucked.
Edit: I guess you could also have the override code open the cockpit door if you wanted to. I trust computers more than humans tho. Edit 2: An auto-land override also prevents hijackers if they somehow manage to get control of the plane.
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On March 27 2015 05:22 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2015 03:31 QuanticHawk wrote:On March 27 2015 03:25 Millitron wrote:On March 27 2015 03:18 Dangermousecatdog wrote: How does this fit the meaning of a terrorist attack in any way shape or form? I don't know the guy's politics, but he killed ~150 people. For all I know, he may have had a motive beyond just suicidal thoughts. ...at which point he would then be classified as a terrorist? I'm not sure what you are getting at. This is why they're going through his house and stuff. Was he a terrorist, if so, was he connected to any groups, etc. The question is why you are even presuming it is possibly a terrorist attack, not why he could possibly not be. You might as well ask, "was it a classic mental illness, or was he just wanting to see if he can weave between mountains?" instead. There's no reason for you to suggest it is a terrorist attack, just as there is no reason for me to suggest that he was curiously stupid. I said that everything suggests it was a murder-suicide, but that authorities are rightfully searching his place for motive?
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Any system that relies on ground control to resolve a contest is making a lot of assumptions. You're asking a remote party to assess whether a life-or-death request is genuine, with nothing to go on but a brief audio call in an extremely stressful situation. That's almost impossible.
If the captain makes the call in this situation, all the FO needs to do is tell control that there's a terrorist and that he thinks the captain has been coerced. If control lets him in and there is a terrorist, they've just killed 150 people.
As someone said earlier, nature will always design a better idiot. Wilful sabotage by a pilot is the kind of thing you're not going to be able to correct for in every instance. There's always going to be a way, and a malicious pilot will know the ins-and-outs of whatever system you put in place. I mean hell he could probably just punch the captain during a manual landing.
if you're inclined to do something about this specific situation, adding a third person to the cockpit is probably the most obvious, but it's debatable whether that's worth all the extra vetting/staff.
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On March 27 2015 06:58 Belisarius wrote: Any system that relies on ground control to resolve a contest is making a lot of assumptions. You're asking a remote party to assess whether a life-or-death request is genuine, with nothing to go on but a brief audio call in an extremely stressful situation. That's almost impossible.
If the captain makes the call in this situation, all the FO needs to do is tell control that there's a terrorist and that he thinks the captain has been coerced. If control lets him in and there is a terrorist, they've just killed 150 people.
As someone said earlier, nature will always design a better idiot. Wilful sabotage by a pilot is the kind of thing you're not going to be able to correct for in every instance. There's always going to be a way, and a malicious pilot will know the ins-and-outs of whatever system you put in place. I mean hell he could probably just punch the captain during a manual landing.
if you're inclined to do something about this specific situation, adding a third person to the cockpit is probably the most obvious, but it's debatable whether that's worth all the extra vetting/staff.
Well not to mention if 'terrorists' ever became more technologically sophisticated they could use remote control to crash the plane without even having to get on it. (Which is currently a problem anyway). We can't always count on terrorists being random guys from the Middle East who grew up without a PC.
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Coming up with a convoluted and overly complicated system to prevent intentional malice from a critical failure point that you can't remove (i.e. the pilots) is only going to create more potential failure points. You can put all the fail safes you want in a system but there will always be critical points you can't remove without a total redesign, which creates a different set of critical points. You can't make anything perfectly safe, I think there was already sufficient safety measures in place.
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