4 ms·

Some of you seem to be worrying this would allow terrorists to crash a thousand aircraft at once. I don't think that's likely. Why would you even make this sof

Some of you seem to be worrying this would allow terrorists to crash a thousand aircraft at once. I don't think that's likely. Why would you even make this software accessible from the ground? On the plane, you replace the pilot with software that does the pilot's job. Built into it, you have a bunch of rules, such as don't fly out of range of a place to land, don't fly into terrain, don't fly into other aircraft, etc.. All these safety rules are fixed and can only be modified by engineers on the ground. The only orders that the plane receives from the ground are fly from here, to there at altitude X. If terrorists hack air traffic control and send all aircraft out to sea, the planes will detect they don't have sufficient fuel for the journey, and will turn back. If the planes detect they're flying too close to other aircraft, they will turn away. All terrorists would be able to do in this situation, is cost a lot of time and money.

melling 12y ago
I don't think it's likely that a pilot would commit suicide by crashing a plane either.
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  He should have never been in a position to execute such a mass murder. The EU has now changed their rules on cockpit safety.
  - uptown 12y ago
    I'm convinced a determined pilot or co-pilot could crash most planes, even with another person in the cockpit. Their rule is better, but I don't believe it eliminates the problem.
    - happyscrappy 12y ago
      The copilot specifically researched and exploited a weakness in EU cockpit access controls. It is good that they have adopted US style protocols but sadly a little too late.
      - uptown 12y ago
        I realize that. I'm just convinced that keeping an aircraft aloft is a delicate-enough procedure that someone at he controls has the ability to cause mass death regardless of who else is in the cockpit.
  - melling 12y ago
    i'm a little unclear on why you think the pilot is still not in a position to execute mass murder. Perhaps you should think through a couple other scenarios.
    - happyscrappy 12y ago
      For starters it would be harder to keep the door locked. The copilot sat quietly as he murdered, having to murder with your bare hands takes a lot more effort.
      - sokoloff 12y ago
        A scenario like AA587 would be relatively quick to pull off by a single pilot in any airliner without full envelope protection (which is most of them). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587
      - melling 12y ago
        So what? The pilot is still in the position to commit mass murder. Just grab the other person by the throat, choke them for a few seconds then throw them outside the cockpit and lock the door. You're about to kill 300 hundred people and you're going to let one person stop you? What kind of psychopath are you? Don't some pilots carry guns? 100 ways to kill someone with a ballpoint pen? http://www.al-vimh.net/2011/05/100-ways-to-kill-with-a-ballpoint-pen/ http://www.al-vimh.net/2011/05/100-ways-to-kill-with-a-ballp...
- ghostberry 12y ago
  A fairly significant number of plane crashes are caused by humans doing something human. They don't have to do it on purpose to lead to disaster.
rlpb 12y ago
> Why would you even make this software accessible from the ground? Why do you assume that the requirements for the software will be set by safety-minded engineers, rather than by politicians? I can also think of attack vectors even with your constraints. Tell all planes in a region to fly to a particular airport. Each plane individually calculates that it has enough fuel, so does so. But this doesn't account for the overloaded airport. Even with fuel contingency to fly to a nearby backup airport, I'm sure there's a number beyond which this will not be possible (since all available backup airports would get overloaded too, etc).
uptown 12y ago
"Why would you even make this software accessible from the ground?" Redundancy. If something goes wrong with your software, you want a backup. So you either keep a pilot in the cockpit like the article mentions, or you give up all hope of recovering from the unexpected technical malfunction. The problem is, the wort case scenarios where there's value in having both a pilot and co-pilot on-board likely cannot be programmed against. Sully did a great job landing in the Hudson river, but he had a co-pilot's help. Would a solo pilot unaccustomed to doing much in the cockpit have been as successful alone? Impossible to day.
- ghostberry 12y ago
  The pilots controls aren't directly connected to the flight surfaces any more, and haven't been for decades. So they're already going through software, which could go wrong. And if the aircraft detects something is wrong, it could alert the ground, and then it could be flown remotely by a specially trained group of pilots and engineers who do nothing but practice controlling aircraft in trouble, or actually fly aircraft that are in trouble.
  - aaronem 12y ago
    > The pilots controls aren't directly connected to the flight surfaces any more, and haven't been for decades True for Airbus, (mostly) not for Boeing -- the first Boeing product with FBW is the 777, and it goes well out of its way to provide control feedback similar to a non-FBW system. And FBW equipment is hardly a panacea. You might consider looking closely at Air France 447, which crashed with the loss of all souls aboard as a direct result of its FBW system not providing realistic feedback. In a non-FBW aircraft, or even in a 777, it would not have been possible for an inexperienced copilot to stall the aircraft all the way from cruise altitude to impact, without anyone else in the cockpit being aware of what was going on. Remote control isn't a panacea, either. What happens when that system is also compromised by whatever mishap has the aircraft in trouble to begin with? With a pilot on board, it's possible at least some of those aboard the aircraft might survive. With an empty cockpit and an R/C remote, everyone on board is almost certainly going to die.
marcosdumay 12y ago
You'd want a human to take control if things become very unusual. The way to do that is making the plane accessible from the ground. Also, you want somebody to talk to ATC, reroute the plane when the weather changes, guide it in land, etc. Computers are still not good enough on those tasks.
TrevorJ 12y ago
I'd be really curious to see stats on how often/if the type of avionics that software like this rely on fails in the real world. I don't have any concept of the reliability. I think we could get the software working reliably, especially with parallel systems (3 different flight models where 2/3 must agree, for instance). I'm more skeptical of the sensors.

melling 12y ago

I don't think it's likely that a pilot would commit suicide by crashing a plane either.

happyscrappy 12y ago
He should have never been in a position to execute such a mass murder. The EU has now changed their rules on cockpit safety.
- uptown 12y ago
  I'm convinced a determined pilot or co-pilot could crash most planes, even with another person in the cockpit. Their rule is better, but I don't believe it eliminates the problem.
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    The copilot specifically researched and exploited a weakness in EU cockpit access controls. It is good that they have adopted US style protocols but sadly a little too late.
    - uptown 12y ago
      I realize that. I'm just convinced that keeping an aircraft aloft is a delicate-enough procedure that someone at he controls has the ability to cause mass death regardless of who else is in the cockpit.
- melling 12y ago
  i'm a little unclear on why you think the pilot is still not in a position to execute mass murder. Perhaps you should think through a couple other scenarios.
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    For starters it would be harder to keep the door locked. The copilot sat quietly as he murdered, having to murder with your bare hands takes a lot more effort.
    - sokoloff 12y ago
      A scenario like AA587 would be relatively quick to pull off by a single pilot in any airliner without full envelope protection (which is most of them). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587
    - melling 12y ago
      So what? The pilot is still in the position to commit mass murder. Just grab the other person by the throat, choke them for a few seconds then throw them outside the cockpit and lock the door. You're about to kill 300 hundred people and you're going to let one person stop you? What kind of psychopath are you? Don't some pilots carry guns? 100 ways to kill someone with a ballpoint pen? http://www.al-vimh.net/2011/05/100-ways-to-kill-with-a-ballpoint-pen/ http://www.al-vimh.net/2011/05/100-ways-to-kill-with-a-ballp...
ghostberry 12y ago
A fairly significant number of plane crashes are caused by humans doing something human. They don't have to do it on purpose to lead to disaster.

rlpb 12y ago

> Why would you even make this software accessible from the ground? Why do you assume that the requirements for the software will be set by safety-minded engineers, rather than by politicians? I can also think of attack vectors even with your constraints. Tell all planes in a region to fly to a particular airport. Each plane individually calculates that it has enough fuel, so does so. But this doesn't account for the overloaded airport. Even with fuel contingency to fly to a nearby backup airport, I'm sure there's a number beyond which this will not be possible (since all available backup airports would get overloaded too, etc).

uptown 12y ago

"Why would you even make this software accessible from the ground?" Redundancy. If something goes wrong with your software, you want a backup. So you either keep a pilot in the cockpit like the article mentions, or you give up all hope of recovering from the unexpected technical malfunction. The problem is, the wort case scenarios where there's value in having both a pilot and co-pilot on-board likely cannot be programmed against. Sully did a great job landing in the Hudson river, but he had a co-pilot's help. Would a solo pilot unaccustomed to doing much in the cockpit have been as successful alone? Impossible to day.

ghostberry 12y ago
The pilots controls aren't directly connected to the flight surfaces any more, and haven't been for decades. So they're already going through software, which could go wrong. And if the aircraft detects something is wrong, it could alert the ground, and then it could be flown remotely by a specially trained group of pilots and engineers who do nothing but practice controlling aircraft in trouble, or actually fly aircraft that are in trouble.
- aaronem 12y ago
  > The pilots controls aren't directly connected to the flight surfaces any more, and haven't been for decades True for Airbus, (mostly) not for Boeing -- the first Boeing product with FBW is the 777, and it goes well out of its way to provide control feedback similar to a non-FBW system. And FBW equipment is hardly a panacea. You might consider looking closely at Air France 447, which crashed with the loss of all souls aboard as a direct result of its FBW system not providing realistic feedback. In a non-FBW aircraft, or even in a 777, it would not have been possible for an inexperienced copilot to stall the aircraft all the way from cruise altitude to impact, without anyone else in the cockpit being aware of what was going on. Remote control isn't a panacea, either. What happens when that system is also compromised by whatever mishap has the aircraft in trouble to begin with? With a pilot on board, it's possible at least some of those aboard the aircraft might survive. With an empty cockpit and an R/C remote, everyone on board is almost certainly going to die.

marcosdumay 12y ago

You'd want a human to take control if things become very unusual. The way to do that is making the plane accessible from the ground. Also, you want somebody to talk to ATC, reroute the plane when the weather changes, guide it in land, etc. Computers are still not good enough on those tasks.

TrevorJ 12y ago

I'd be really curious to see stats on how often/if the type of avionics that software like this rely on fails in the real world. I don't have any concept of the reliability. I think we could get the software working reliably, especially with parallel systems (3 different flight models where 2/3 must agree, for instance). I'm more skeptical of the sensors.