Silicon Valley plans to stop skyjackings...all of them.

ZDNET news desk ^ | 9/13.01 | David Coursey

[Guardgunner]

I see on AR15.com's public forum that Front Sight (a firearms training institute out in Las Vegas,NV) is offering FREE firearms training to ALL commercial pilots in the world. Interesting!!

[CWRWinger]

"...penicillin to treat syphilis."

Penicillin doesn't work like it use to. The strains of syphilis are becoming resistant to penicillin. This techinical/medical solution to the problem is failing and does not address the real problem: man's nature and tendency to do wrong.

[Don Joe]

"I vote for sealed cockpits and sleepy gas triggered by flight attendants or pilots."

Let us know when they invent it. Do you have any idea why anesthesiolgists require intensive training, and must keep a constant watch on your body signs when you're "under"?

You may as well elecrocute all the passengers and then tell the terrorists "well, now what?"

[Don Joe]

"How does that sound for a plan?"

Stupid, unless you like dying in a stall, or being unable to make an emergency landing when something goes wrong with the plane.

[Don Joe]

"If there's a need to land a plane immediately, get it away from a city or to an airport before doing so."

This nonsense is getting more absurd by the minute.

Now we've got to build a whole new set of airports, becuause the ones we've got -- by and in the cities -- are not compatible with this fantasy vaporware.

Tighten your cluestraps, kids. Let's go through this one step at a time, OK?

1. Not every problem on earth can be solved with the right piece of software.

2. This protracted bull session on how to hone an inherently defective idea is a great way to avoid the obvious solution to the problem of terrorists.

3. Trying to come up with a "software solution" to a problem with armed thugs is really nothing more than an exercise in Sarah-think. Mizz Brady must be right proud seeing this dedication to futility.

Repeat after me, folks. If some inbred cretin is trying to kick my door in so that he can die for allah, then I fully intend to fulfill his fantasy. On my terms.

I'm not going to dig an aligator pit with a trap door and laughing gas showerhead by my front door.

I'm going to blow the mofo straight to allah-hell.

But even that solution is less than perfect.

Dubya has it right. We don't deal with these cockroaches every time we walk into the kitchen. We fumigate the whole house.

[Don Joe]

"My brother thought it was a great idea, and he is a former pilot for a major airline!"

Former, eh?

Regardless, it's obvious that he's not an anestheologist, or a cardiologist, or an insurance underwriter, or a trial attorney.

I take that back. He may be a trial attorney.

[IronJack]

I thought of the same thing, only not based on GPS. The pilot should have a lockout switch, that essentially freezes the cockpit controls. THe aircraft can be controlled from the ground, and can only be returned to pilot control from the ground as well. The hijacker can kill everyone aboard the plane, but he will not be able to commandeer the aircraft and turn it into a misguided missile.

That, and a stronger lock on the cockpit door.

[George Smiley]

A simpler approach would to make the cock pit impenatrable and have a couple of sky marshalls guarding it with fractals...

Uh, fractals are drawings. I assume you mean frangible ammunition, like Glasers or Mag-Safes.

[oneway]

Uh, fractals are drawings. I assume you mean frangible ammunition, like Glasers or Mag-Safes.

thats what the owner of my local range calls em...if you bring a rifle to his indoor short range...he calls the rounds fractals...they disintigrate on impact...I am sure your right...just that is what he calls these exploding rounds

[WIMom]

LET'S ROLL!

[George Smiley]

Hmmm. Same root word.

The definition says that I'm right, but the etymological note at the bottom indicates that your rangemaster might just be a Latin scholar.

frac·tal (frktl)
n.
A geometric pattern that is repeated at ever smaller scales to produce irregular shapes and surfaces that cannot be represented by classical geometry. Fractals are used especially in computer modeling of irregular patterns and structures in nature.
-----------------------------------------------------------
[French, from Latin frctus, past participle of frangere, to break. See fraction.]

---

fran·gi·ble (frnj-bl)
adj.
Capable of being broken; breakable. See Synonyms at fragile.
------------------------------------------------------------
[Middle English, from Old French, from Medieval Latin frangibilis, from Latin frangere, to break. See bhreg- in Indo-European Roots.]

[desertfox]

You can fly on one if you want. Not me. I am not flying on a plane that some raghead hacker could take control of from the ground. Never been a computer program devised that can not be hacked.

[goldstategop]

I think one would want to have the codes protected by a specially encrypted password that would be transmitted by means of recording the pilot's brainwave pattens as an additional safeguard. The point to having codes themselves keyed to voice pattern recognition and retina pattern recognition is that these are unique in every human being and can't be readily forged or compromised or cracked like they would be if they were typed into or stored in the airplane controls to begin with. By requiring pilot interaction with controls to activate them a hijacker who kills a pilot can't operate the controls or steer the plane to his objective. And with reinforced cockpit doors or redesigning the cockpit so there is no access from the passenger compartment the potential hijackers face both low tech and high tech barriers to taking over the plane. So even if they somehow were able to defeat the software and commandeer the plane, its still pointless if they can't get access to the cockpit. I think having both sets of measures in place would make hijackers think twice about undertaking a mission that is bound to fail even before it begins. So it looks like last Tuesday's hijackings will be the last we will see at least for this country and our domestic carriers will be like flying fortresses from now on. No way any one will take us by surprise in that manner ever again.

[Gladwin]

"...penicillin to treat syphilis."

Penicillin doesn't work like it use to. The strains of syphilis are becoming resistant to penicillin. This techinical/medical solution to the problem is failing and does not address the real problem: man's nature and tendency to do wrong.

Pure silliness. No one is about to give up their weapons against the terrorists --- and start preaching peace. One of our greatest weapons against evil is our technical expertise; American ingenuity is greatest when faced with terrible necessity.

I have no problem with trying to change the hearts and minds of people, but trying to change the mind of Osama bin Laden is a ridiculous. Some people can only be killed or imprisoned. He is one of those people. His followers are the same.

Every possible and reasonable technical means to foil these attacks should be considered. Since airplanes can already be landed using autopilots, it is a niggling thing to install a panic button.

Some people have argued for a only a military solution, but ignoring special autopilot software is like not installing dead bolts on your door because you have a shotgun in your home. One thing does not exclude the other.

[magellan]

There are a bizillion reasons this is a bad idea:

What do you invite once you have made the pilots expendable?

What is the "safe" airport has a problem? How do you do a go-around?

What would keep the hijacker from just pulling the fire handles for all of the engines, causing the plane to crash?

If "safe mode" disables the fire supression system, what happens if there IS and engine fire while in "safe mode"?

If "safe mode" automatically disables itself on landing, and the terrorist is at the controls, he could just do a touch and go.

What would happen on an extended overwater flight? It could be four hours to the "safe mode" airport, and the hijackers could kill a passenger every few minutes until their demands are met.

I say put a solid door to the cockpit, and instruct pilots to go on oxygen and depressurize the cabin during a hijacking.

The only safe-mode button should be one that disables the passenger emergency oxygen system.

[Gladwin]

"Safe mode" would be a last resort. If the sky marshals are dead and the cabin is about to be breached, it should be activated. It is assumed, at that point, that the hijackers have bad intentions, and aren't going to let anyone out alive.

I have no particular problems with depressurizing the passenger compartment.

Fire suppression or not is besides the point - this system is also in place to protect the people on the ground. 100 lost is better than 5000.

On a flight over an ocean, I don't see how killing hostages gets them anything if safe mode is already activated.

[annieokie]

I have been saying this for years, and posted this idea on FR the other night. It seems to have picked up steam.

This is the only viable solution that I can see. I am glad you added the no gas mask's allowed on the planes, no mask's at all.

The cockpit shall be self contained, kitchen, bathroom, everything the pilots need.

Thanks for keeping this idea BUMPED.