Breaking News Airliner Escorted Into Manchester Airport By The Raf

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/manchester-airport-fighter-jets-escort-3993974

[sandyRoe]

AOG, imagine a suspicious plane in the south told to fly to Stanstead. If it didn't, and attempted to fly on towards london, it would be shot down.
Same here, I expect.

[Zeuhl]

Standard procedure

any airborne 'threat' provokes a 'scramble' and close observation until plane becomes the responsibility of ground security.

Anyway wasn't it a Boeing like the Malaysian plane?

The US security services would have been able if necessary to take over the controls and fly it far out to sea (allegedly)

[hc4361]

That's exactly it, so the plane can be shot down hopefully over open sea

[Gromit]

I saw it, was that a typhoon Eurofighter?

It was very very loud. I hope it is not supposed to ge stealthy, it may be invisible to radar, but you can hear it approaching from tens of miles away.

[Gromit]

Great quote from the Police...

// "On a sliding scale we think we may be looking at an idiot rather than an international terrorist." //

[mibn2cweus]

// "On a sliding scale we think we may be looking at an idiot rather than an international terrorist." //

I can see where making such a distinction might be difficult.

[Hypognosis]

Come again, Zeuhl??

//Anyway wasn't it a Boeing like the Malaysian plane?

The US security services would have been able if necessary to take over the controls and fly it far out to sea (allegedly) //

Ability to remote control Boeings specifically? Or numerous aircraft makes?

Where are you reading stuff like this?

[stuey]

Airplanes today are controlled by computers, not pilots: hack into their computers and you have control.

[Svejk]

///Where are you reading stuff like this///
lol, good question.

[stuey]

The great majority of flights today are "hands off" as far as the pilots are concerned including take-offs and landings (where's Clanad), and if some nerd can hack into almost anyone's computer why wouldn't you suspect that the security forces, if that's the correct term, could take over an airplane's system?

[Hypognosis]

Why in the name of Clapton would any plane manufacturer be so stupid as to connect the aircraft navigation computer to the 'wild west' of the internet? If they did that, every plane in the sky would be in peril. Think about it.

It's the same rationale which means that nuclear power stations and ICBM launch sites are hermetically sealed from the web and spacecraft use computer architecture of a generation or two back - tried, tested and all flaws known and managed.

I could be wrong but by all means show me where. (Start another threaf if you want to speculate about MH370 (KL to China) being hacked.

[Jomlett]

The man held after Tuesday's alert at Manchester Airport is sectioned under Mental Health Act.