Technology for Autopilot Override of Pilot Control of Boeing Aircraft Developed Circa 2001
The development of the capability of an aircraft Flight Management Computer (FMC) to take control of an aircraft away from a pilot and turn over control to its autopilot system, including apparently Boeing 757's, was underway circa September 11, 2001. The development of a collision avoidance, control override capability utilizing a Boeing 757 is documented as early as 1999. Boeing 757s and 767s containing common avionics, were used during the 9/11 attacks.
"Ultimately, if required, the system could initiate an automatically flown evasive maneuver. Validation flights were completed at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility and in-flight demonstrations of the system were completed at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in November 1999 for FAA officials and other Government and industry representatives. The NASA B-757 ARIES and a Honeywell Gulfstream IV (G-IV) were used in the flight test effort."[1]
In 2003, "Aviation Week" and Honeywell described the continued development of "ground proximity warning systems" that can allow a GPS-guided aircraft autopilot system to take away control of an aircraft from a pilot during emergencies. Honeywell state-of-the-art Flight Management Systems (FMS) were used by the four aircraft reportedly hijacked on September 11, 2001.
"Assisted recovery builds on existing enhanced ground proximity warning systems (EGPWS), autopilot or fly-by-wire technologies to prevent an aircraft from crashing into terrain or buildings ... If pilots don't respond to warnings within a certain amount of time, assisted recovery directs autopilot or fly-by-wire control systems to steer aircraft away from a crash."[2]
A 2005 report on ground proximity warning systems states that the Boeing 767's that were crashed into the World Trade Center (WTC) relied on navigation databases that contained the exact locations of the WTC towers:
"The hijacked passenger jets that hit the World Trade Center buildings were equipped with EGPWS ... The twin towers were in the database"[3]
[1] http://www.cs.odu.edu/~mln/ltrs-pdfs/NASA-aiaa-2002-5822.pdf
[2] http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=aviationdaily&id=news/eva08133.xml
[3] http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=awst&id=news/09265p08.xml&headline=Airbus Shows Interest in Honeywell's Auto Pull-Up Software
- Aidan Monaghan's blog
- Login to post comments
Possible Scenarios
"Ultimately, if required, the system could initiate an automatically flown evasive maneuver."
So,
A) The planes' control could have/should have been taken over from the hijackers and landed somewhere. (this scenario, had the planes actually been hijacked by those alleged)
or
B) The control of the planes WERE taken over from whoever was in the cockpit and the desired targets were hit. (what likely happened)
or
C) REAL Arab hijackers took control of the planes but no one on the ground thought to use the Flight Management Computer in the emergency.
or
D) It didn't work, because an evil genius was able to disable the Flight Management Computers.
or
E) Substituted (drones) were not equipped with Flight Management Computers.
or
F) Substituted (drones) were equipped with Flight Management Computers which were used to guide them into their intended targets.
Good sleuthing Aidan! Now we just have to present this information to the proper authorities so they will insist on reopening an investigation.
Any other possible scenarios anyone?
Who were the hijackers?
The question, who took over and was in the control of the planes, is essential. Surprisingly the official theory offers not enough evidence, to answer this question satisfying. So I spent some time investigating, but found no solution.
Just for the record of this discussion, I would like to point to an unlikely possibility, which I rejected:
"D. B. Cooper" hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft, (...) and parachuted to an uncertain fate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper
It is unlikely, because the planes were different: The planes, which were uses on 911, had no air-steps on the back - to my knowledge. Additional the planes on 911 were flying far too fast to jump-off.
Footnote #2 To Be Corrected
It was originally thought the the information attributed to footnote #2 was located within the cited article but is apparently within another article.
Aidan, again "Thanks!"
I am so glad that you are doing what you are doing.
It is appreciated by many!
Excellent Finding!
Great sleuthing, Aidan, which confirms our suspicions! So it seems that there need have been no hijackers on the planes. The new autopilot flight path need not have been installed manually by on-board hijackers, and the "disabling" capability would prevent the pilot from overriding the remotely-changed flight path. This accords with all the other evidence for the absence of hijackers -- no photos of them at boarding gates, no Arabic names on flight manifests, etc. -- as well as your own superb demonstration that their function onboard would not have included flying the planes themselves (humans pilots could not have flown the planes so precisely into the buildings). Still the mystery of why the transponders never squawked "hijack". Perhaps the system included a capability to "block the squawk!" Super discovery!
GeorgeWashington wrote...
A good article on the possibility of Remote Control in January 2006.
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2006/01/wheres-remote-control.html
right!!
...and who was the point man in the Pentagon having expertise in this technology? The Comptroller appointed by Bush Jr., serving from from May 4, 2001 to March 10, 2004.
achimspok's UA175 Video...
achimspok's UA175 Video Study: The Last 12 Seconds -
more info here -
http://s1.zetaboards.com/pumpitout/topic/2006950/1/
.
Off topic - I beg Aidan's indulgence
The Jon Cole video "9/11 Experiments - Eliminate the Impossible" is out-of-focus. I posted this observation on the appropriate thread - but articles on Blogger seem to have a shelf life of only a few days. So I don't know if Jon ever saw my post.
Anyway - I find the out-of-focus text portions detract significantly from the impact of the video.The image portions are okay - as the eye does not necessarily expect images to have crisp edges. But Jon -- if you read this - please consider re-doing the text portions of the video.
Thank you Aidan for allowing this post.
Secret disabling code
Good research work! I have a question, though. Is the purpose of the "secret disabling code" to take control away from the pilot, or to take control away from the assisted recovery system? The way that I read the referenced article, it looks more likely that the intent of the secret code is to disable the automation and to allow the pilot to retake or maintain control of the aircraft.
Remote control
Food for thought:
1. "Angel is next" may have referred to the next plane whose control would be taken over by a remote source. Such an act would clearly show the President that he was no longer in command. The route of AirForce 1 was changed from the original return to D.C. and if I recall correctly from Tarpley's book, a reporter on board recounted some erratic flying (excessively high climb rate if I'm remembering correctly). Was this the final stroke of the coup, well hidden in plain sight? [As a general tool, note the power that remote controlling jets endows upon the controller.]
2. The next president came into office with a bit of gusto, including an Attorney General who was talking about investigating torture. But, we soon had the following event (below; note the Minneapolis connection, - this was an A320 but I expect all the jet makers have been including such external control capabilities) as well as the Christmas Day underwear bomber incident. Did these incidents conclusively show the new President and all others able to read the signals that he wasn't in command? We have since heard zero from the Attorney General, closing of Gitmo, ending wars, etc..
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/10/24/nwa-pilots/
October 24, 2009
Minneapolis (AP) — The first officer of the Northwest Airlines jet that missed its destination by 150 miles says there was no disagreement in the cockpit, neither he nor the captain was napping and the passengers were never in any danger.
But in an interview with The Associated Press two days after he and a colleague blew past their destination as air traffic controllers tried frantically to reach them, pilot Richard Cole would not say just what it was that led to them to forget to land Flight 188.
"We were not asleep; we were not having an argument; we were not having a fight," Cole told the AP.
Air traffic controllers and pilots tried for more than an hour Wednesday night to contact Cole and the flight's captain, Timothy B. Cheney, of Gig Harbor, Wash., using radio, cell phone and data messages. On the ground, concerned officials alerted National Guard jets to prepare to chase the airliner from two locations, though none of the military planes left the runway.
"It was not a serious event, from a safety issue," Cole said in front of his Salem, Ore., home. "I would tell you more, but I've already told you way too much."
.... sure sounds like someone who has been threatened and is very scared.
3. The ingredients for a "perfect crime" are now laid out before us. Recruit some would-be Jihadists; convince them they'll be involved in something big and let them talk a bit and do things like take pilot lessons, hence establishing their culpability; put them aboard planes that are remote controlled to strike the exact locations of buildings where explosives have been installed. A final note here is that in the ever-lasting discussion about the Pentagon, debate seems always to hinge on the identity of the planes and not the fact that the strike left no marks on the lawn yet hit the ground floor, a virtually impossible geometry for a human pilot flying full speed in ground effect while striking multiple light poles. Whatever hit the Pentagon was guided there in a very precise fashion.