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posted by takyon on Sunday August 12 2018, @02:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the tomorrow-might-have-been-a-better-day-dept dept.

He stole a 76-seat Bombardier Q400 from Seattle-Tacoma Airport. Two NORAD F-15s scrambled from Portland. He was in contact with Air Traffic Control, apologized to his family. Said he was unwilling to land at a military base because "they would rough me up". Directed out over the Pacific by the fighters, crashed on an uninhabited island in Puget Sound.

A witness claimed he did a loop-de-loop but I didn't see it in his video.

I am completely convinced that suicidal depression can always be cured.

'Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose,' says man after taking passenger plane that crashed near Seattle

He had all the proper security credentials. He had been working his shift and was believed to still be in uniform. The baggage handler didn't seem out of place at all — until he was taxiing down the runway and taking off in a stolen passenger plane.

Media outlets identified him as Richard Russell, a 27-year-old who sparked a combination of amazement and fear as he flew — alone — a 76-seat Horizon Air Q400 plane for more than an hour before it crashed on a wooded area on Ketron Island south of Seattle.

He did a barrel roll. A daring swoop. Officials said they didn't believe he even had a pilot's license. "Incredible," Horizon Air President and Chief Executive Gary Beck said Saturday.

But investigators are still trying to understand why he decided to take the plane for a what appeared to be joy ride Friday evening from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

The act also reignited discussions about airport and aviation security, with Alaska Airlines Chairman and CEO Brad Tilden repeating several times Saturday that passenger and employee safety was — and is — the company's primary concern.

Also at CNN.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday August 12 2018, @03:24PM (17 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday August 12 2018, @03:24PM (#720575)

    The problem is securing the mental health of 7 billion economically disadvantaged people, vs securing a couple of thousand airports and maybe a million aircraft.

    What I see coming out of this is some kind of mandatory tower authorization to start engines relay, I'd be surprised if the big jets don't have it already. Coded transmission from a "friendly" tower turns on the engine start lockout, and only another coded transmission from ATC will re-enable engine start. Sure, a tech could hotwire past it, but techs who can do that are a lot more rare than depressed baggage handlers.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by redneckmother on Sunday August 12 2018, @04:47PM (15 children)

    by redneckmother (3597) on Sunday August 12 2018, @04:47PM (#720608)

    ... mandatory tower authorization to start engines relay, ...

    Oh, goody - another attack vector for blackhats. Could make bringing down a big plane REAL easy - maybe even several at once.

    Sometimes, technology isn't a good solution.

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    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday August 12 2018, @05:11PM (14 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday August 12 2018, @05:11PM (#720619)

      Read, process, react - preferably in that order.

      While I generally hate the idea of "big brother" controls, I say that I foresee this possible outcome because it could be designed and sold as exploit safe: an engine START lockout would only prevent engines from being started, not stop engines in mid flight. As previously stated, the coded transmission would have, by design, zero effects on a running engine, and further safeguards like indicated airspeed >50kts or other automatic indicators of "in flight" status could also bypass this starter-disable type of control.

      The readily foreseeable exploits are "safe": issuance of starter disable by an unauthorized party, only affects aircraft with engines not presently running. The easier exploit: jamming of legitimate engine start authorization signals, could be annoying, but at an airport like SeaTac you don't want aircraft starting up and taking off without reliable communication with the tower anyway, so this exploit is little different than simple jamming of the existing ATC voice channels, and if it becomes persistent the tower can send out handheld transmitters close to the planes to drown out the jamming signals. Granted, those handhelds become a "key" that one can use to gain unintended engine start authorization, but being able to keep those keys in ATC hands would seem more effective than whatever allowed a baggage handler to steal a plane yesterday.

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      • (Score: 1) by redneckmother on Sunday August 12 2018, @05:28PM (1 child)

        by redneckmother (3597) on Sunday August 12 2018, @05:28PM (#720622)

        an engine START lockout would only prevent engines from being started

        A fair point, and one that I considered before posting. I doubt such tech would not expand to the inclusion of a "stop" function, though. Feature-itis, as it were.

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        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday August 12 2018, @11:52PM

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday August 12 2018, @11:52PM (#720739)

          I doubt such tech would not expand to the inclusion of a "stop" function

          I doubt I would own, or pilot any aircraft which includes a remote "stop" function, beyond the obvious existing sidewinder launched from an F-15 and similar that we already have today.

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      • (Score: 5, Informative) by sjames on Sunday August 12 2018, @08:43PM (7 children)

        by sjames (2882) on Sunday August 12 2018, @08:43PM (#720674) Journal

        Sometimes under generally bad conditions, a pilot must restart an engine (or all of them) in-flight. It would be bad if that couldn't be done.

        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday August 12 2018, @11:55PM (6 children)

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday August 12 2018, @11:55PM (#720741)

          Thus, the extended protections such as: IAS and requirement of a coded transmission from ATC. The coded transmission could always conceivably be forged, but a faulty IAS should be a reason to never leave the ground in the first place. If the attacker can gain access to tamper with the IAS provision of the system, they can plant all manner of sabotage far simpler.

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          • (Score: 2) by sjames on Monday August 13 2018, @12:32AM (5 children)

            by sjames (2882) on Monday August 13 2018, @12:32AM (#720765) Journal

            So you've been surprised by a squall, one of your engines flamed out from aspirating too much rain and hail, the vertical winds are bouncing you around like a cork and you'd be just fine waiting for a permissive signal from ATC before you can attempt a re-start procedure and hopefully have enough power to fly out of your situation? Especially considering you may have less than stellar communications with the ATC due to all the lightning and sheets of rain?

            As for IAS, it was working just fine until the pitot tube froze over. That actually happens, in exactly the same conditions that are likely to call for an engine restart.

            • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 13 2018, @01:32AM (4 children)

              by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday August 13 2018, @01:32AM (#720778)

              O.K. - normal usage: ATC locks down once stopped on tarmac with transmission of coded signal, then unlocks with coded signal concurrently with permission to start engines.

              While in-flight, you'd have to be experiencing total IAS (and whatever else is in the fail-safe system) failure, plus engine failure, PLUS a successful hack of the engine start lockout system in-air, after the engine failure. Seems like a rare enough circumstance that the hackers would be better off targeting healthcare records for ransom or some similarly soft and lucrative target, instead of waiting for years for the opportunity and placing agents on hundreds, probably thousands, of flights just waiting for that opportunity to kill themselves by sending the cracked code at the inopportune moment.

              Again, if they can plant such a device on a plane unattended, they can plant much more effective sabotage as well.

              In reality, I see this system being implemented not by ATC from the towers, but by the fleet owners from their corporate offices - same way they send a flight plan, they also send an authorization for engine start. Not saying it's without problems, but losing aircraft to suicidal idiots isn't cheap either, particularly if you're hit with a negligence lawsuit for the people they kill when they fail to thread the needle between the towers of a major urban center.

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              • (Score: 2) by sjames on Monday August 13 2018, @03:58AM (3 children)

                by sjames (2882) on Monday August 13 2018, @03:58AM (#720830) Journal

                If ATC doesn't have to be on board to transmit the lock signal, neither do the bad guys.

                So that just leaves us with an expensive system (once you take exhaustive testing, certification, etc into account) that slightly increases the risk of a terrible accident to prevent something that has happened once in living memory..

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 13 2018, @04:26AM (2 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 13 2018, @04:26AM (#720839) Journal

        an engine START lockout would only prevent engines from being started, not stop engines in mid flight.

        Unless, of course, it happens to be able to do something to stop engines or other destructive actions in flight. Even if the engineering turns out to be solid, you still have introduced a means by which someone can halt for a time most large airplane traffic in the US remotely (perhaps until the hardware is replaced, if they can brick it).

        But having said that, various ridiculous central control plans have been pushed just because a few people are idiots. Your scenario is plausible. This wouldn't be the first time, should it come to pass.

        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 13 2018, @06:37PM (1 child)

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday August 13 2018, @06:37PM (#721086)

          Unless, of course, it happens to be able to do something to stop engines or other destructive actions in flight.

          So, simplistically, consider the starter on a piston engine: a small electric motor. Cutting power to that starter disables the ability to start the engine, and yet has no possible effect on a normally running engine, since during normal running that starter is never energized.

          Edge cases about mid-air restarts, etc. can be addressed with increasing layers of complexity, and idiots are capable of making bowling balls non-functional using a plastic spoon, but... such a system as an engine-start interdict CAN conceivably be rolled out with minimal cost and safety risk and inconvenience in operation, while simultaneously making a major dent in the ease to steal aircraft so-protected... I'd be rather surprised if the major jet carriers don't have something of a similar nature, not controlled by ATC, but at least controlled by their certified pilots, if not corporate offices.

          Me, personally, I'm trying to stick with cars that use metal keys without e-chips, because in the world I live in those (combined with a decent steering column lock mechanism) are good enough, and I don't give a flying F if I can start my engine from outside the vehicle or not.

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          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 14 2018, @10:33AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 14 2018, @10:33AM (#721313) Journal

            So, simplistically, consider the starter on a piston engine: a small electric motor. Cutting power to that starter disables the ability to start the engine, and yet has no possible effect on a normally running engine, since during normal running that starter is never energized.

            The means of control becomes the vector of attack.

            Edge cases about mid-air restarts, etc. can be addressed with increasing layers of complexity,

            Sounds like we're already going off the rails.

            but... such a system as an engine-start interdict CAN conceivably be rolled out with minimal cost and safety risk and inconvenience in operation, while simultaneously making a major dent in the ease to steal aircraft so-protected...

            Minimal cost? Such as all your planes being unable to start up for hours or days because someone or a software bug locked out everyone? Seriously, what problem is this supposed to fix? Such airplane thefts are pretty rare while this introduces a variety of novel failure modes even if it doesn't manage to knock out engines in flight.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @08:49AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @08:49AM (#720871)

        Yeah right. We recently had $100,000 worth of damage to a machine.
        The head operated when it shouldn't have (in the standby position), and caused a lot of damage. The damage was easily foreseeable in the event of operation in that position.

        The manufacturer (who is also the service contractor) swore blind it had to be our fault, because the machine had six lockouts to stop it operating when it shouldn't. Turns out every fucking one of them was in the contoller software. Running on a windows box.

        A 50 cent physical switch on the transport could have cut the power to the head when in standby position, but no, it all had to be in software.

  • (Score: 2) by legont on Sunday August 12 2018, @11:27PM

    by legont (4179) on Sunday August 12 2018, @11:27PM (#720727)

    The airport where I am based is also used as a hunting ground (a hunting club shares the land). There are folks shooting guns all the time over there even off-season (apparently dogs need permanent training). The deal is they don't point toward aircraft.

    It is within 1 hour drive from NYC.

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