how planes can be made hi-jack proof.

I have been wondering why they havent made planes hi-jack proof. If they can land planes with the auto pilot mode, why cant they incorporate a total cockpit lockout that would leave total control to the control towers? In a situation where a pilot is in trouble, he can hit a panic button that will lock out ALL of the controls (steering, throttle,etc.) in the cockpit, turning over all control to the closest control tower, in which case the plane is immediately landed at the nearest airstrip where the appropriate emergency, and/or law enforcement will be standing by. Sure, this wont prevent terrorists from blowing up planes, but it will limit their options to where it crashes or detonates. Hi-jackers that want to steal the planes to go somewhere other than its scheduled course, would be illiminated knowing that they could not gain control of the planes. Isnt this a feasible solution? What do you think about it?

sounds like a good idea, but there may be a problem with linking the plane and the tower. if the tower's link to the plane gets cut, by say, terrorists sabotaging onboard comms equipment, or bad weather then who would fly the plane?

personally, i feel air marshals with tazars is a better option

yeah, I see your point, but with technology today it seems they could come up with some sort of failsafe plan.

There is actually a fight going on right now about mandatory external
controls and the ability to lock out pilot overides in the event a plane
suddenly goes off course.

The problem is what happens when there is a true emergency and the pilots must
abandon the scheduled flight path for an emergency landing.

c00ster says:

"I have been wondering why they havent made planes hi-jack proof. If they can land planes with the auto pilot mode, why cant they incorporate a total cockpit lockout that would leave total control to the control towers?"

Because, for a start, air traffic controllers are not pilots.

"In a situation where a pilot is in trouble, he can hit a panic button that will lock out ALL of the controls (steering, throttle,etc.) in the cockpit, turning over all control to the closest control tower, in which case the plane is immediately landed at the nearest airstrip where the appropriate emergency, and/or law enforcement will be standing by."

Even if the ATCs knew how to fly aircraft (which they don't) you would still need redundant telemetry so the pilots (assuming the airlines hire another couple thousand pilots and put them in all the towers along with sophisticated cockpit simulators with which the ground-based pilots would fly the aircraft) could land the plane safely. Also, you'd need a complete refit of every aircraft to accept radio signal inputs in addition to onboard control inputs, along with aircraft-mounted video cameras.

My guess is that each aircraft retro-fit itself (when you consider non-recurring costs to be amortized across the entire fleets) would cost as much as the original aircraft itself (say, US$80 million for a 777 or A-340). Then, of course, you'd need to add a 30- or 40-million dollar aircraft simulator at each airport with pilots on the ground 24/7 to operate them, etc.

And those figures are just for the United States. In order for the plan to work, you'd have to have such a protocol adopted worldwide, or the whole scheme would fall apart.

We're talking billions and billions of dollars here, and it still, as you yourself said, would not keep the planes from being destroyed by the hijackers.

Meanwhile, when you factor in the costs, including product liability, you can safely assume that your airline ticket and air freight bills would triple.

It's just not cost-effective.

everything he said ^

i believe your idea has been thouroughly killed.

well they always have a pilot on hand to assist with emergency situations, which would be the only reason to use this idea to begin with. As far as hiring all the pilots you talk about, that would only be necessary if using this system was common practice. Do they check the "black box" on every flight? No, unless there are problems. Lets say they DID have hi-jackers on EVERY flight and use of the system was common practice; heres an idea, if they can lock out the pilot controls in the cock pit, they could eliminate the use for pilots in the cockpit all together, so move those pilots into the control towers and fly all the jets remotely.

further more, by linking navigational equipment to satelites (like GPS), like they do with missiles and such, with a little more sophistication, one would think it to be feasible. What does it cost to strap on a few cameras? With computer technology, some genius, I am sure could come up with a way to convert the planes accordingly.

and "cost effective" really plays no part in my reasons for thinking it is a good concept!
aircraft being destroyed anyways with a few hundred people (terrible in itself) on a scale is still to me better than a few thousand killed. I am not stupid to think there wouldnt be costs and that they wouldnt be bled unto us the consumer, but when they can spend billions on nukes that collect dust,never being used (thank God)- why not spend money like that on more useful things designed for safety, rather than destruction.

and ZetaGundam007, stick a fork in it before you call it "killed!"

political reasoning, does not discredit an idea, it only answers why it hasnt been utilized. What IS doesnt explain why something couldnt be.

I saw no hard factual evidence that the IDEA could NOT work! Therefor, my idea still breathes!

if you made it so piolets could automaticaly lock them selves off from the plane controls in that situation,
and made them so they were Remotely controled by a computer or someone.
couldnt that system be abbused by someone ( hackers since they can almost hack almost any system )
hacking into a system that would take control of a plane wouldnt be that defficult for them.

and terrorits are well funded so they can easily hire computer boffins to do that.

no solution is full proof

I think the simplest solution would be to seperate the cockpit from the rest of the aircraft. Either have it so you have a nice, thick sturdy door seperating the pilots from the rest of the plane and only open the door when needed. Or just remove the door entirely and add an exit on the side for the pilots.

Of course that means redesigning the aircraft, but still. It seems like it could be cheaper and simpler to impliment.

With airlines expecting employees to take across the board pay cuts,
I doubt if they are going to hire a bunch of new pilots any time soon.

Well, theres always going to be the "What if" factor. I mean, nothing is fool proof. You could analyse this till your blue in the face, theres always possibilities.


-J

I believe the "turn off remote control"-button will be used as soon as hijackers threathen to take lives..

Originally posted by jra
I think the simplest solution would be to seperate the cockpit from the rest of the aircraft. Either have it so you have a nice, thick sturdy door seperating the pilots from the rest of the plane and only open the door when needed. Or just remove the door entirely and add an exit on the side for the pilots.

Of course that means redesigning the aircraft, but still. It seems like it could be cheaper and simpler to impliment.

Hard to believe how long ago I started this post, but I like the idea of just separating the cockpit, or a solid wall between them.

Originally posted by jra
I think the simplest solution would be to seperate the cockpit from the rest of the aircraft. Either have it so you have a nice, thick sturdy door separating the pilots from the rest of the plane and only open the door when needed. Or just remove the door entirely and add an exit on the side for the pilots.

+1

Simple and effective.


Option 2 does however remove the possibility of the pilots coming back into the passenger cabin.

I think the simplest solution would be to seperate the cockpit from the rest of the aircraft. Either have it so you have a nice, thick sturdy door separating the pilots from the rest of the plane and only open the door when needed. Or just remove the door entirely and add an exit on the side for the pilots.

I'm having an error with the rest of your post...

It involved a bomb blowing up the entire plane, which includes you in your safe little zone, or whatever you are talking about.

Simple, hire airline hostesses and stewards that are werewolves!


I like the idea that the cockpit could be made completely secure through some kind of lock-down procedure. However, neither the pilot nor the air traffic controllers should have any way of being able to retract this measure whilst the plane is still in the air. It should rely on some external and manual switch with a key of some sort.

This way, terrorists couldn't attempt to blackmail any of the airline crew into opening the door so they could takeover the plane.

Granted, it's not going to prevent planes blowing up, but it would prevent actual hi-jacking.

Uh...

Seperate entrances for pilots and passengers?

If a "terrorist" can open a door, crawl around the fuselage to open the cockpit door, then get in, all while flying at 400mph, they deserve to hijack the plane.

Originally posted by logician magician
I'm having an error with the rest of your post...

It involved a bomb blowing up the entire plane, which includes you in your safe little zone, or whatever you are talking about.

Do you understand what "hi-jack" means?


Blow up =/= hi-jack

Hijack proofing? Make the cockpit stronger and locked at all times.

Oh... wait....