Dorr disagrees that linking the auto-pilot system to existing terrain warning systems would be effective. I can understand that any time you discuss systems that take away control from the pilot, you have to look long and hard at them.
However, it seems to me that simply trying to build systems that identify known terrorists and keep “dangerous” items off aircraft is a fundamentally flawed approach. How difficult would it be for terrorist groups to find several people who were not suspected of being linked to terrorist groups, and then put them aboard an aircraft? Imagine six big men, with make-shift weapons (sharp plastic “knives” made by breaking pieces off a laptop, or even parts of the aircraft itself). How would higher security deal with that?
Doesn’t it make sense that making it impossible (or at least extraordinarily difficult) to use an aircraft for any dire purposes is a desirable goal? Obviously, the increased security is a good idea, but is it really the best way to prevent something like September 11th’s tragedy?
David Coursey’s friend at ZDNet’s Anchordesk had a similar thought.
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“(Install) ‘safe mode’ panic buttons that put the plane on forced autopilot that cannot be overridden, except in special circumstances,” Steve says. He’d have them mounted in the cockpit, one for each side, with additional optional buttons in crew areas on each side of the plane in both the forward and aft cabins.
Once a plane is in safe mode, suggests Steve, it would randomly select one of the 10 nearest airports capable of accommodating that plane type, and automatically land the aircraft there.
“This technique works because you take both the pilots and the terrorists out of a control situation,” he explains. “A terrorist can no longer threaten the pilot to ‘Do this or I will kill people’ because the terrorist knows that the pilot can’t accommodate the demand no matter what.”
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I think something like that should be in place. Sure a terrorist could explode a bomb on the plane, but at least he wouldn’t have control of the plane.
That’s an even better solution. Terrorists would naturally try and concoct a way of defeating the ability of someone to push the “safe mode” button, but there would always be the very real risk (for the Bad Guys) that someone would “safe” the plane despite their best efforts.