> Show me a case where an IN-FLIGHT transponder shutdown is a needed issue, or where this does not need a better engineered solution. Certainly. There's always

> Show me a case where an IN-FLIGHT transponder shutdown is a needed issue, or where this does not need a better engineered solution. Certainly. There's always more than one transponder on board a big jet, for safety and redundancy reasons. If a transponder begins to misbehave, it might position the aircraft incorrectly on the ATC screen, very dangerous, or the transponder could be getting bad information from the altimeter (class C transponder), which would cause ATC to paint the aircraft at the wrong altitude -- also very dangerous. These are just two reasons among many, for flight deck officers to require an immediate way to disable a transponder. > Give me any reasonable response to why this is not something that should be fixed. There's something you need to understand about the relationship between an aircraft and its pilot. The aircraft is designed to protect the pilot and the passengers, not the other way around. All this talk about protecting the aircraft from the pilot and passengers has it backwards. Obviously this means if a pilot goes crazy or someone unauthorized gets into the cockpit, the results can be catastrophic.