Semi-related: There was a TV event/movie in Germany/Austria/Switzerland last year about a (fictitious) court decision about an airforce pilot that shot down such a plane. The plane was taken hostage by terrorists and took course to a football stadium.
The (non-fictitious) audience in Germany could vote if the pilot is guilty for killing the people in the aircraft or not. 86,9% in Germany voted that the pilot is not guilty.
To give a bit more background: The law strongly disagrees with the court of public opinion here. It is illegal to shoot down an aircraft in such a situation in Germany. The German government at one point tried to change this and our constitutional court told them that their new law violated the constitution and has to be scrapped.
"It is illegal to shoot down an aircraft in such a situation in Germany."
No! The Verfassungsgerichtshof ("supreme court") ruling, makes it illegal for the government to give an order to shoot down the airplane (i.e. to make a decision on actively killing some people to save others). Most lawyers, however, agree that the pilot of the nearby fighter jet would face none or minor legal consequences if deciding to shoot down such a rouge airplane. IANAL which is why I refer for details to the following German blog (by a well renowned judge): http://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2016-10/ard-fe...
Shooting down an aircraft is legal, but only if the cabinett gives the order. Which is still unrealistic, as the Minister of Defence can't order it alone even in an emergency. The judges recognised that this is suboptimal, but a change would need a change in the constitution. Some former ministers of defence are though on record they would still order it and deal with the legal consequences fallout later.
Then there is the question if the pilot alone (I guess that what the tv movie was about?) could make a decision? For example if the aircraft is flying towards a stadium or nuclear plant and the jet pilot has to make a decision in a split second.
The nuclear plant worry is an unrealistic trope. Most Western nuclear plants have a very robust containment dome that can handle the impact from an airliner.
Didn't knew that updated decision. Thanks for the correction. I'm a bit disappointed right now that they've changed their opinion from a clear "not allowed", but at least the hurdles are pretty high.
Very interesting. I wonder: what about gunning the engines until they fail? That would leave the plane unable to go far, but still able to make a risky crash landing using a nearby sea, road or field. Or even an appropriate runway if one timed things right.
Planes are pretty frail. You'd risk completely destroying the wings. That would leave you with a tube filled with 300 people 10km in the air - but rapidly approaching ground level.
A plane that's deemed a danger to anything is probably not 10km in the air. At that height it wouldn't even hit Mount Everest, let alone any people. And a plane without wings still has momentum and the lifting body effect going for it to assist an emergency landing. Then again, destroying (part of) the wings probably also causes all the fuel stored in the wings to ignite.
A plane without wings flies about as well as any other largish tube, i.e. approximately straight down. As for a plane without engines - the ~5 successful jetliner landings w/o engines in the entire history are called Miracle This and Miracle That for a reason; those things need a lot of power just to keep in the air. Speaking of which: iginted fuel would be the least of your worries - destroyed wing parts means destroyed lift; again, good luck flying a brick.
Your argument is "look, people have won the lottery before, therefore it's a good idea" - an improbable happyend captures attention far more than the usual outcome of the accident lottery, which is something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_191
This is akin to the notion of a police officer being able to shoot the gun out of a criminal's hand. A fighter jet's cannons aren't precision tools, they're designed to hose down a plane, not to make surgical attacks. Also, flying a jet without all engines operational can be difficult, especially if the pilots only have rudimentary training (as was the case with the 9/11 attackers).
Very cool video. I wonder what the fighter jets could actually achieve by pulling up alongside like that? I don't suppose they could do any kind of visual inspection or signaling at that distance - even though one did seem to inch closer at one point.
The wording from the airline statement was a bit funny: "the German Air Force deployed its aircraft to ensure the safety of the flight and its guests" - considering that their main purpose was presumably to blow up the jet if it posed a threat.
On a side note, I had never seen a video like this before and it really drives home what massive amounts of exhaust these machines put out.
> The wording from the airline statement was a bit funny: "the German Air Force deployed its aircraft to ensure the safety of the flight and its guests"
Not every case of lost communication with an aircraft is due to hijacking. Sometimes it's due to a serious accident on board, such as cabin depressurisation. [0]
In these cases, observations from the intercepting aircraft can be vital to understanding the circumstances leading up to a plane crash.
As far as I know they fly close enough to look into the cockpit if they don't get a response. Also, if it is just a pilot error fighter jets appearing should quickly get their attention, have them check radios etc, and/or follow the jets to the nearest airport.
(After 9/11 a law was added in Germany that would permit shooting down a plane if there is no other option to prevent it being used in a sucessful attack, but said law was scrapped by the constitutional court. There has been some public debate about what to do in case such a situation happens anyways)
Actually there us much they can do. First off they can verify that people are awake. Some depressurization or fire events can see everyone knocked out. They can also verify the exact location and identity of the aircraft. If bad actors are in control the transponders and other locators cannot be trusted.
If the pilot isnt responding to the radio, say if he turned to the wrong freq, then reports from passengers/crew of fighter jets will see the pilots recheck all coms gear. Them being there tells the pilots that something is very wrong, that they should start talking asap.
The fighters are trying to get the attention of passengers. Thats much safer than getting in front where the crew can see them (crew rarely look out the windows without good reason anyway).
Candian cf18s have a light mounted below the pilot to illuminate intercepted aircraft at night. Blink that a couple time and passengers will start screaming about UFOs.
> and it really drives home what massive amounts of exhaust these machines put out.
It just looks this massove, but that's mistly due to condensation of water vapor.
Sure, those engines have a massive throughput of air, but the visible "exhaust" is barely the result of burning kerosene.
And water vapor from the burnt fuel. Hydrocarbon + o2 = co2+h2o. Those contrails are burnt fuel, just like car exaust on a cold day. The water is a product of burning.
These rules are an international recommendation (set in the "Rules of the Air" by ICAO), so while the link technically is US-only the procedure described in it is not.
Yes. They are taught pre-solo. I've been flying almost 20 years, so I can't swear exactly whether they were on the FAA knowledge ("written") test or not, but these are taught very early on as part of ground school.
Many kneeboards and emergency procedure checklists have them handy as well.
Realistically, if you can remember to tune to 121.5 MHz (the universal VHF emergency frequency), that's going to be good enough for all but lost comms. For a lost comms scenario (including electrical failure), the intercept procedures are unlikely to come into play; you'll instead proceed to an airport and land.
[Contact] was briefly lost while flying over German airspace. Communication was safely restored within a few minutes.
That sounds like the whole incident didn't take more than 15 minutes. Does somebody know how fast the Typhoons were with the airliner?
I know there are some guidelines for the Luftwaffe like "a fighter needs to be able to get to any point in german airspace within 15 minutes" or so, but that all sounds VERY fast.
We've had a couple of incidents in the UK recently that demonstrated the 'lag' in interception of non-communicative aircraft.
In April 2016 a German-registered Challenger business jet flew east-west across the UK and was just about to enter Irish airspace when the RAF Typhoons reached it.
Then in October the same happened with a Volaris A320 that managed to fly most of the south-north extent of the UK before being intercepted, again just before leaving UK airspace.
In both cases if there had been any malicious intent then it could easily have been executed over major cities. In fact I watched that A320 fly over my town... The problem in the UK is that the main fighter bases are on the east coast, to combat the Soviet hordes that never arrived. So basically everything is a supersonic tail-chase for the interceptors unless it's coming from the Benelux countries. The RAF really needs to redispose its units for dealing with the new 'threat' but there's simply no money to do so.
There are vary levels of readiness, from pilots sitting in the jet with the engines turned on, to pilots sitting equipped 2 minute away from the plane, and so on.
And it looks like the 2 planes came from different bases.
Interesting that they intercepted after only 15 minutes. Maybe the aircraft had crossed the border without making contact. In the US, airliners accidentally lose contact for close to this time period quite frequently. To reestablish, the controllers will sometimes have a fellow company ship relay a message with the correct frequency via ACARS, or the lost aircraft can listen on 121.5 until someone calls with the correct frequency. I suppose in Europe this would be considered a more critical issue due to the frequent border crossings.
I know, there are still different communication requirements for different airspaces.
When you file your travel plans you'll have to check in with different ATCs at different points, you are also likely to be contacted by ATCs depending on the flight plan, conditions and various other factors during the flight.
If you do not check in on schedule e.g. when there is a handover of ATCs or you do not respond to ATCs that trying to make contact with you, there will be a flag and an alert will be likely sent.
If this goes on for minutes then they'll assume something was wrong and follow their procedure to make contact and investigate which might involve scrambling jets to make visual contact.
It's not like pilots can be too busy to respond to ATCs yes they might delay a response if they are in a middle of a sentence with a member of the air crew but that's a 5 seconds delay.
Even a 1 minute delay would be flagged and you'll likely to be asked why you haven't responded or made contact on time.
Quite the LOL at the chatter between the the British Airways pilots filming this saying I expect they love the opportunity to do this. Any excuse and the other one yeah.
Could anyone comment on why both lower fighters keep to the left side of the airliner? For better visibility, I would have expected them to take it between them. Additionally, the sun seems to be on the left, so they would be hard to make out.
It's all standardized interception behaviour. The flight leader is trying establish contact with the plane on the left side, the other jet is just on standby.
Edit: And they picked the left side because that's where the pilot in charge of the plane is supposed to sit.
Plus, I would imagine, the interceptors are leaving the right side clear: should an additional aviation emergency develop, the plane is still safe to maneuver in 5 directions (the sixth being blocked by the interceptors).
Not much. That's why you send someone to actually take a look up close, and see if that's actually the case or not. OTOH, both pilots dozing off or becoming distracted - now that tends to happen, too. In that case, "knock knock, who's there? German Airforce" tends to resolve the situation fairly quickly and without further incident*, as seen here.
(Other than "a wild mountain of paperwork appears")
There was a huge debate back then when the government wanted to legalize shooting down a plane that is being controlled by terrorists and has innocent people on board. The German Supreme Court ruled that this is unconstitutional and illegal.
The supreme court ruled that the law that allowed the order to shoot down the plane was unconstitutional. There are differing oppionions on how other laws apply, for example Nothilfe (defence of a third person).
At least a fighter pilot acting on his own accord seems to be legally able to shoot a plane down if a real danger seems to exists.
> As a precaution, the German Air Force deployed its aircraft to ensure the safety of the flight and its guests.
Does anyone still believe this bullshit? Clearly there's nothing that the fighter jets could do to ensure the safety of the flight/passengers - the most they could do is to shoot the plane down in a safe area to avoid casualties on the ground, if it were e.g. controlled by terrorists.
And the media/institutions wonder why people don't trust them...
It would be illegal in Germany to shoot down a hijacked airliner and ordering the pilot to do so would be an illegitimate order the pilot would be forbidden from following. The most anyone could do would be the Minister of Defence of the Chancellor talking directly to the pilot and telling her that they would take the fall if her conscience allowed them to shoot down the plane. The pilot would still face a trial with uncertain results.
So, please stop with the alternative facts and the conspiracy stuff. Not every country works like the US of A, unbelievably.
> It would be illegal in Germany to shoot down a hijacked airliner and ordering the pilot to do so would be an illegitimate order the pilot would be forbidden from following
Yeah we're going need a source on that. Don't even think of pulling up that vague Grundgesetz about human dignity, the legality of refusing an order would be established AFTER the fact. To call such an order illegal before any court judgement is the very thing that you are branding as an alternative fact.
>The armed forces’ authorisation pursuant to § 14.3 of the Aviation Security Act (Luftsicherheitsgesetz – LuftSiG) to shoot down by the direct use of armed force an aircraft that is intended to be used against human lives is incompatible with the right to life under Article 2.2 sentence 1 of the Basic Law in conjunction with the guarantee of human dignity under Article 1.1 of the Basic Law to the extent that it affects persons on board the aircraft who are not participants in the crime.
It sounds incredibly dumb and the fact that nobody has challenged and changed this is testament to the pace of public official life.
If somebody were to get a nuclear bomb on a civilian plane, the german government would be constitutionally obligated to let them fly to wherever they want.
I imagine that in real life the german government would ask France or Great Britain to quickly fly over and do the job for them.
Afterwards it's nobody's fault and we can all keep pretending that the Grundgesetz is perfect.
There are other possibilities beside "plane controlled by terrorists" - radio failure, for example (for all the redundancies, this still happens in the 21st century). In that case, rudimentary visual communication comes in handy.
In other words, not all in-flight emergencies follow the Hollywood movie conventions ;)
You're right of course but they could also have an easier time guiding a plane down if the pilots watching the aircraft needed to get a passenger to do it.
Perhaps hijackers seeing armed missiles out the window might rethink their negotiating position. You never used to hijack a plane to kill people that's fairly recent.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5680442/ https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_%E2%80%93_Ihr_Urteil