Originally Posted by Rama (Post 1850939)

A nut on the ground in control of multiple aircraft is worse than a nut in a single airplane.

Originally Posted by Captain Nemo (Post 1850932)

That is more far fetched than having a single pilot. How would taking over from the ground have helped in this situation? By the time the ground would have realized something was wrong it would have ended in the same result.

Better yet how would someone from the ground have access to remotely take over? How much time would that take? Is there going to be someone qualified and available for every aircraft type and every flight at every ATC center world wide every day? Who's going to pay for it?

Even if it were possible this would be far more dangerous than leaving things the way they are now.

No aircraft maker will ever develop an aircraft that would lock out the pilots entirely. There will always be a manual override. What if some wacko on the ground decided to crash an airplane or multiple airplanes remotely? What would be the remedy then?

The media fuels these fantasy remedies without thinking anything about the cost and liability and the Herculean tasks it would take to implement such ridiculous initiatives.

The media rots the brain.

Originally Posted by JamesNoBrakes (Post 1850942)

Simple, an airliner certificated for one pilot would have systems in it that would detect if something threatened the safety of the flight (such as impending terrain, a command into the ground, etc). If this was detected, the system would revert control automatically to built in autopilot and ground control. This isn't rocket science, there are auto-driving cars and the Russians launched a space shuttle and returned it to earth with no pilots over 30 years ago. This would only be an "emergency backup" as well, but it would be needed in case the one pilot has a heart attack, or like in this situation, goes crazy. You can fight technology kicking and screaming, but it's coming. Just like auto-driving cars. As a society, we are begging for them, that's where auto-designers are spending their money in R&D right now. No one really wants to spend the money for increased training, more requirements, tests, etc, so the solution is to design the human out of the system.

Originally Posted by Packrat (Post 1850970)

If the F/O had been an FFDO, he could have just shot the Captain and drove into the hills.

Originally Posted by Captain Nemo (Post 1850956)

Comparing a jet liner to a car? Really?

Originally Posted by gloopy (Post 1850367)

Heck controllers already go ballistic when a plane is a quarter dot off the localizer on a non PRM runway.

Originally Posted by Mesabah (Post 1850979)

Yes, a jetliner is much easier to automate because it always remains in a controlled environment.

The advantage of single pilot is that you get to go direct everywhere with no delays. You guys are trying to apply single pilot to the current system, and that won't work. It requires a new system that is currently in development.

All a hacker could do is change the aircraft's destination airport. That's the future of flying, your flight plan is LGA direct ATL for example. The computer knows where all other aircraft are, so it plots a trajectory to avoid conflict. There is no altitude selector, heading selector, no ILS's, no VOR's, no airways, and no ATC to talk to. The first pilot is there to simply take manual control if all automation fails. What does the second pilot do in that situation?