This technology is known as the Boeing Honeywell ‘Uninterruptible’ Autopilot System. The new autopilot patent was reported by John Croft for Flight Global, with the news piece subsequently linked by a Homeland Security News Wire and other British publications around the same time. According to the DHS release, it was disclosed that “dedicated electrical circuits” within an onboard flight system could control a plane without the need of pilots, stating that the advanced avionics would fly the aircraft remotely, independently of those operating the plane:
“The “uninterruptible” autopilot would be activated – either by pilots, by onboard sensors, or even remotely via radio or satellite links by government agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency, if terrorists attempt to gain control of a flight deck.”
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how long has this capability been on the market?
Wikipedia has 2006 for the Boeing Honeywell system.
However, the technology has been around for much longer.
In 1946, the Pilotless Aircraft Branch was created during the rise of the RAND corporation’s first classified projects, as it has been said that RAND research began looking into satellite controlled vehicles, noting that satellites could be applied to all types of military and civilian applications in the future.
In March of 1996, the RQ-3 DarkStar drone manufactured by Lockeed Martin and Boeing, could make an entirely human free flight, with its operating ‘sensors’ acquiring targets and the transmission of flight path information in a ‘fully autonomous’ way. It is also important to note that the programming language used in a Boeing 777, is the same language used for Boeing’s DarkStar drone – Ada-95 programming.
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Remote control over commercial aircraft
The NASA Dryden Flight Research Center and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) joined efforts for a remote controlled flight experiment called the Controlled Impact Demonstration (CID), in 1984.
Crashed intentionally using remote control in 1984.
1996 Boeing's Darkstar drone flown by satellite, not much extrapolation needed to infer that the involuntary autopilot was operational before 2006.