After 9/11 there was a lot of talk about Positive Aircraft Control - Where the controls of a hijacked airliner could be taken from the ground through modern technological innovations that originated in the world of UAV’s. In fact here’s a patent filed exactly one month after 9/11 for just this type of system: Supervisory control system for aircraft flight management during….

Anyhow, there was quite a bit of protest out of the pilot unions, which being a pilot, I can understand. Pilots don’t want to be passengers in their own airplanes, period. And for the folks out there who will still be saying “…But what if there’s terrorists in the cockpit!” I say this: Between the heightened levels of airport security, armed pilots, reinforced cockpit doors, trained flight attendants, armed air marshalls, riding LEO’s, and emboldened passengers, it’s safe to say that terrorists today will have a much harder time getting into airline cockpits then ever before. Besides, once the aircraft has confirmed hijackers on it, we pilots have, shall we say, certain ‘terrorist unfriendly maneuvers’ that will knock Mr. Bad Intentions right on his a$$ while hopefully the flight attendants can pour scalding water on his face, among other things, as happened here: Clever pilot captures hijacker - AP.

Anyhow, my reason for bringing up Positive Aircraft Control again after it seemingly (and thankfully) disappeared for a while, is because of recent developments in the train world.

You may or may not have heard about the terrible train collision in Los Angeles, California back on the September 12th. This accident, the worst train disaster in Los Angeles history, was caused by human error. As a direct result of this, President Bush signed into law a sweeping railroad safety bill which included provisions to fund technology which will take positive control of a train away from the engineer if the train is on the wrong path. The early versions of the new technology will just cause the train to stop in it’s tracks.

Doesn’t seem like a bad idea to me, on the surface. But I fear there will be a few underlying bugs, and a certain unwanted ramification for the airline industry- My entire reason for writing this post in the first place, which occurred to me while reading this article: Bush signs rail safety bill - AP.

It’s the fact itself that a President signed into law a bill for positive transportation control, of any kind. I think, although under reported in the mainstream media, that it sets a massive president for all forms of transportation. We’ll have to see what effects, if any, it will hold down the road for the airlines. You might be saying that it’s not going to have any effect - But even if people in the future can say “Well trains have it…”, that’s a big enough effect.

Thank about it..
Capt’n Chris

Filed under: Editorials | |

Since I’m officially on vacation right now and have a general lack of internet accessibility both out of WiFi scarcity and a fear of the dog house, I’m going to take the present opportunity to remember 9/11 this year.

I can’t believe it’s already been 7 years since that awful day - A day so many people died and a day that forever changed the landscape of our existence as we knew it in so many ways, especially pertaining to the air travel experience.

I cannot even begin with where to start, as words do not do the justice owed in describing the loss of life nor the magnitude of the impact that day would have on so many things. So I’m not even going to try. But I do know one thing for certain:

WE CAN NEVER FORGET.

And by that I specifically mean we can never forget the application and correlation portions of the four levels of learning as I believe they can be applied here: We have to continually apply and correlate the why, how, where, and result(s) of that day towards our future and how we choose to live it.

Capt’n Chris

Filed under: Editorials | |