begin oe_protect.scr
Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> __/ [ Bobbie ] on Sunday 23 July 2006 07:38 \__
>
>> On Sun, 23 Jul 2006 07:11:19 +0100, Stephen Fairchild wrote:
>>
>>> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>>>
>>>> Anti-hijack software under development
>>>>
>>>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>>> | Some 30 European businesses and research institutes are working to
>>>> | create software that would make it possible from a distance to regain
>>>> | control of an aircraft from hijackers, according to the German news
>>>> | magazine.
>>>> `----
>>>>
>>> Now just wait until the first aircraft gets 0wn3d. The press will have a
>>> field day.
>>
>> Hasn't there been a couple of incidents with the computers on the Airbus.
>
> I did a quick Web search and all I could find were many comments in the
> following item:
>
> http://slashdot.org/articles/03/07/03/1639249.shtml?tid=126
>
> Search page for 'airbus'. Here is just one snippet:
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>| Ding ding ding! Thank you. One need look only as far as the Airbus
>| A-320that crashed at an airshow while doing a low fly-by; the computer
>| prevented
>| the pilot from increasing power to the engines, and the plane mowed a
>| 200 foot wide swath through the forest and exploded in flames.
> `----
This was a pre-production version, as far as I recall. I also recall
some views that it was already too late by the time the pilot was trying
to recover. Airbus safety is good, but there's no such thing as safe
flying. For example, there are 28 recorded events with fatalities
resulting from Boeing 747 events. Even so, the 747 has an excellent
safety record. There are 6 recorded A320 fatal events.
Flying is far safer than driving in terms of number of injuries and
deaths overall, although in terms of actual travelled hours, I'm not
sure what the numbers look like, although again, I'd suggest that flying
will be much safer. Motorcycling is the least safe, I think.
Anyway, back to the thread... remote control of aircraft and other
vehicles is surely not so far away, as we're very likely to move to 100%
computer control of such things in due course. We already have fully
automatic railways (two in the UK I can think of right now), which have
100% safety records. Computer assisted driving is coming on more and
more. A japanese company recently launched(?) a vehicle with automatic
lane-tracking software, and also an adaptive cruise control which took
account of distance to next vehicle.
The question for taking remote control of a hijacked aircraft must
surely be is it more likely to be electronically hijacked afterwards
than it was to be manually hijacked beforehand.
HMG's current assessment is that business and privately owned jets are a
much greater threat/risk than commercial airliners now. For example,
Learjets are probably much easier to hijack, and have fantastic
performance when compared with an A340 or 747, and could do some real
damage in a kamikaze attack.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it.
- Brian Kernighan
|
|
