Last year I flew a 757 sim at United’s flight school in Denver and was awed at the plane’s ability to fly to an airport and auto land itself in zero / zero weather.
Perhaps a deterant to hijackers would be to install a “panic” button in newer (fly by wire)aircraft that would take over the controls and auto land at the nearest Cat III airport. Nothing on board could override the system and it would automatically squawk the hijack code and open the mikes in the cockpit to a special frequency so that everything could be heard regardless of the outcome.
Oops - Jonathon beat me to the idea. (see post below)
Last year I flew a 757 sim at United’s flight school in Denver and was awed at the plane’s ability to fly to an airport and auto land itself in zero / zero weather.
Perhaps a deterant to hijackers would be to install a “panic” button in newer (fly by wire)aircraft that would take over the controls and auto land at the nearest Cat III airport. Nothing on board could override the system and it would automatically squawk the hijack code and open the mikes in the cockpit to a special frequency so that everything could be heard regardless of the outcome.
Since we seem to agree that keeping knives off of planes is pretty much impossible, why don’t we arm the cockpit crew and have a rule that, in case of a hyjacking, the cabin door must not be opened for any reason. With a little reenforcement and a low cost closed circuit camera, this would give the pilots some protection and time to take some action. Since quite a few pilots already have military training, it could be implemented relatively quickly.
Oops - Jonathon beat me to the idea. (see post below)
Last year I flew a 757 sim at United’s flight school in Denver and was awed at the plane’s ability to fly to an airport and auto land itself in zero / zero weather.
Perhaps a deterant to hijackers would be to install a “panic” button in newer (fly by wire)aircraft that would take over the controls and auto land at the nearest Cat III airport. Nothing on board could override the system and it would automatically squawk the hijack code and open the mikes in the cockpit to a special frequency so that everything could be heard regardless of the outcome.
I agree with Pete. A simple low cost and very effective means to reduce this crime… Arm all crew members with a 9mm and full authority to use. We trust these people with our lives everyday so let’s give them some special training and “absolute authority”…