This reminds me of the discussions to close Washington National Airport, which crops up at least once a decade and never seems to go anywhere. Of course, that's a bit of a different situation; Congress loves the convenience of an airport in their backyard. I'd be surprised to see LGA close before 2025.


My guess is that they're back at work, but I don't know. I'm sure they had some extra training events before returning to the line.

Did the pilots live?

Yes! Everybody survived. What I learned from this is that when you open the door on an airplane, it is mandatory for everyone aboard to wear parachutes, including the pilots. Since they were following this FAA regulation, everybody made it to the ground safely.

I found this article from the NYT that is both informative and captures the more romantic side of being an airline pilot. I think W0X0F will enjoy it:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...w-nytimes&_r=0

I loved it! I'm not only bookmarking it, I'm printing a copy to carry with me. Worthy of Ernie Gann!

I found interesting the part where he mentions the questions he gets when he meets people socially and they find out he's a pilot. One of the most common I hear is: What route do you fly? The perception seems to be that we're assigned a few cities to fly to and that's our life. While it's true that some pilots fly to the same places over and over again by choice (I knew a senior FO on the 767 who flew to Nice, France four times a month for a year), we fly wherever our whim and bidding power allow us.

Guy hacked into entertainment system and took control of plane. Made engine go into climb mode.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2...labs/27448335/

Can a pilot override this happening?

Came to post the same article. As far as I can tell, he claims to have done so, but it's not confirmed. I have to wonder if that's really possible. I see no reason flight control would be networked with in flight entertainment, so I'm skeptical.

Yeah, I don't buy it either. But it is in the USA Today, America's most credible news source.

It's certainly possible. I'd be surprised if the entertainment system was completely stand alone as it does things like stop for pilot/FA announcements and gets data about the flight (speed, altitude, etc.).

This guy didn't hack it through the software. It sounds like he physically connected to the box. And once you've got physical access to a connection there's all sorts of things really smart people can do.

I'm guessing defence from things like buffer overflow and other low level attacks were never a big priority for manufacturers as its a pretty hard system to get physical access to.

CBS and other news outlets are also reporting on it.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/chris-ro...ndeered-plane/
What JJ stated above makes sense. What does seem strange is a guy fiddling with something under his seat and connecting wires to it didn't raise suspicions at the moment.

W0X0F:

From your response, it seems like your are suspicious if it even really happened.

Media is indeed using term allegedly.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/17/us/fbi...puter-systems/

It seems at a minimum he tried to gain access.

Interesting that he has not been arrested.

It seems the passanger entertainment systems and wifi aren't air gapped from avionics, that is to say there is a connection http://www.wired.com/2015/04/hackers...ssenger-wi-fi/. Which is quite amazing. However, I too am sceptical about this guys claims that he managed to interfere with the planes systems. Seems like attention seeking. It cant be something simple enough to do with the limited time aboard the aircraft, unless he had detailed knowledge of the systems prior to the flights and was able to prepare. Even then, it would seem near suicidal to try to mess with the systems mid-flight.

I too was wondering if it would be possible to get into the onboard networks without anyone noticing. The online articles say he did this by connecting to a box of the passanger entertainment system. Apparently, on the planes he supposedly did this, those boxes are under the seats, 2 per row, and he accessed one under the seat infront of him. I guess no-one would notice if he pretended to get something from a bag under the seat or something. However, one would think someone would have noticed the plane briefly "flying sideways": http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2...labs/27448335/. Its amazing what you can do with a laptop :P

.. This article says the systems are air gapped: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/ha...feat-1.3042166. So who knows. Would have to read the US Government Accountability Office report referred to in the Wired article above to know precisely what their concern was. In any case, I dont believe the security consultants claims.

It is possible someone messed up somewhere and compromised the air gapped systems but this is very unlikely. I believe he managed to get more information from the cockpit than he was supposed to get but not that he could control an engine.

The cbc article is sort of standard in that it seems like they're confusing different concepts.

The passenger wi-fi is almost certainly air gapped and separate from anything else. It's obvious why this is. Gaining access to the wi-fi network is easy - because that's what its meant for. I don't believe the wi-fi has anything to do with what the security dude was doing.

The entertainment system is a totally different beast. It has a very controlled interface (the touch screen) and so it would be an easy oversight to not worry as much about someone malicious gaining access to the network behind it.

And like I mentioned earlier we have pretty good clues that the entertainment system is connected in some fashion to the standard flight control system. The map being displayed has to get its information from somewhere and the software needs to know when to pause for announcements in some way.

Another way to look at this claim is that game console manufacturers have been trying to keep people from bypassing their copyright protections for years (decades?). It's generally been pretty unsuccessful because once people have low level access they can usually find a bug/exploit that gets them past any security restrictions. I can't imagine the entertainment system received anywhere close to the amount of time/money that game consoles get when it comes to this kind of security.

Even if this is actually a real problem the solution is to probably just lock down/move the boxes and not try to harden the software in a meaningful way (because that's probably futile).

This is an interesting discussion, but I still think the original claims (he was actually making the plane climb) are simply the exaggerated claims of an ignorant and gullible media. Even if it turns out to be true, he would need both pilots to be asleep in order to really take over the plane, because the first thing any pilot would do when the plane starts doing something unexpected is to disconnect the autopilot. And there is no way to eliminate our ability to do that without re-wiring the plane.

The whole "caused the plane to move sideways in the air" sort of jumped out at me as being a bit tough to swallow.

This guy seems like he legitimately knows aviation IT security.

But that is crazy to admit to successfully hacking into the system and gaining control, or even trying to gain control. And risking his own life as well as everyone on the plane.

I am happy to hear a pilot can override it in the unlikely even it does happen.

I work outside directly under flight paths of landing planes at DFW, see dozens land (occasionally take off with a north wind) every day just under 3 miles from the start of the runway. But can't figure out what I saw from what appeared to be a Delta 737 today.

Was on a standard track over me when it suddenly banked right what looked like 10-15 degrees. Then banked back left about 20 degrees. Finally corrected hard back right and appeared to get lined back up. All this in approximately 1.5 miles. Wind was <8 mph on the ground.

So what happened? Whatever it was, certainly was ugly from the ground.

Could have been an "S" turn for separation purposes.

My first guess would be that she encountered the wake turbulence of the aircraft that took off just before she did. A 737 could be rocked by a 757 or larger plane.

Plane was landing.

Very informative thread, thanks.

If you are flying over the Himalayan mountains and lose cabin pressure, what happens next? Do you have more than enough time divert, and how long does the emergency oxygen last at 30,000 feet?

Crappy day to fly so it seems.

Fighter Jets Scramble Following at Least 6 Reports of Threats to Passenger Planes, Officials Say

Several reports will auto play on that page.

With regard to the discussion above on hacking into avionics, the tech site Wired just published a new article that tries to go a bit deeper into how the various systems are/arent connected http://www.wired.com/2015/05/possibl...cial-aircraft/. Their conclusion is that the things that the guy apparently claimed to have done according to the FBI affidavit, seem impossible to do based on available info. Its either a case of things having been taken out of context as the hacker claimed, or he got into the entertainment system and got confused as to what trafic he was seeing and what it meant in terms of whats hackable and whats not, or, most likely IMHO, its a case of tall tales by an attention hungry hacker. Its also pointed out, like W0X0F did, that the pilots would be able to take control in the case of problems.

Interesting stuff. Its really a tale of three completely unreliable sources: the security dude, Boeing, and the media. Two have motives to lie about what can/can't be done, and one is mostly just clueless.

I will say that the idea of an ex-Boeing guy telling me that the system is completely safe isn't particularly reassuring. Like I said, we've heard similar false claims from game console manufacturers for years. And the past 12-18 months have shown a number of security vulnerabilities in security software that many of us would have previously claimed couldn't have existed.

Edit: I'll add that if the security dude is telling the truth - he probably can't prove it publicly anytime soon. The attack would likely be based on a low level vulnerability that you wouldn't want to make public until it was fixed.