Two Previous Posts: 1-Russian Passenger Jet Crashes After Take Off from Sinai Peninsula- No survivors2- ISIS Claims Responsibility for Downing Russian Passenger Jet ?Updates: Russian plane crash: Crash bodies scattered over 8km radiusAirlines Reroute Flights After Russian Crash in Egypt
Lufthansa of Germany and Air France said they would reroute flights over the region until the circumstances of the accident were established, a sign that airlines have become a lot more cautious in recent years about flying over regions involved in conflicts.
I'm still having a problem with the narrative created by one Egyptian official! He is the ONLY source for all the media stories pushing "technical problems" Despite the fact he claimed the plane was safely in Turkish air space prior to changing his tune
One Egyptian official, Ayman al-Muqadem of the government's Aviation Incidents Committee, said that before the plane lost contact with air traffic controllers, the pilot had radioed and said the aircraft was experiencing technical problems and that he intended to try and land at the nearest airport.It was impossible to independently confirm whether technical problems were to blame, and no other Egyptian official repeated the claim on Saturday.
TIME The US has been claiming all along that Russia wasn't targeting ISIS in Syria. Recall? More than 90%' of Russian airstrikes in Syria have not targeted Isis, US saysOr: Just Who Is Russia Targeting in Syria? Saying repeatedly that Russia was targeting the moderates. But now ISIS is having revenge?!According to ISIS?
In response, the terrorist group declared a “holy war” against Russia and the U.S., which is carrying out a separate military campaign against ISIS in Iraq and, now, Syria. “Islamic youth everywhere, ignite jihad against the Russians and the Americans in their crusaders’ war against Muslims,” the group’s spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani said in a statement on Oct. 13, according to Reuters.
Senior officials from the U.S. have also warned that the Russian airstrikes would make it a target for terrorists. “This will have consequences for Russia itself, which is rightly fearful of attacks,” U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Oct. 8. “In coming days, the Russians will begin to suffer from casualties,” he said during a summit of the NATO alliance in Brussels.
And last one for the day...Contradicting the Egyptian story teller! Crashed Russian Airliner Pilot Did Not Seek Traffic Control Help
The pilot of the Russian airliner that crashed in the Sinai Peninsula did not request assistance from the air traffic control at Sharm El-Sheikh airport before the incident, Egyptian Minister of Civil Aviation Hossam Kamal said Saturday.
Egyptian sources- (1 Egyptian source, just 1)- were quoted as saying earlier the Airbus-321 flight 9268 pilot requested help from air traffic controllers due to technical difficulties. The airliner with 224 people on board disappeared from radars 23 minutes after takeoff en route to St. Petersburg.
“The air traffic controllers’ communication with the Russian airplane was carried out normally until the disaster,” Kamal said at a press conference.
Update # 1G&M
The A321 is a medium-haul jet in service since 1994, with over 1,100 in operation worldwide and a good safety record. *It is a highly automated aircraft relying on computers to help pilots stay within safe flying limits*
*It is a highly automated aircraft relying on computers to help pilots stay within safe flying limits*Could the automated controls have been tampered with? I'm asking for input as I think aloud?Thanks Feds Say That Banned Researcher Commandeered a Plane
Chris Roberts, a security researcher with One World Labs, told the FBI agent during an interview in February that he had hacked the in-flight entertainment system, or IFE, on an airplane and overwrote code on the plane’s Thrust Management Computer while aboard the flight. He was able to issue a climb command and make the plane briefly change course, the document states.Roberts had previously told WIRED that he caused a plane to climb during a simulated test on a virtual environment he and a colleague created, but he insisted then that he had not interfered with the operation of a plane while in flight. He told WIRED that he did access in-flight networks about 15 times during various flights but had not done anything beyond explore the networks and observe data traffic crossing them. According to the FBI affidavit, however, when he mentioned this to agents last February he told them that he also had briefly commandeered a plane during one of those flights. He told the FBI that the period in which he accessed the in-flight networks more than a dozen times occurred between 2011 and 2014. The affidavit, however, does not indicate exactly which flight he allegedly caused to turn to fly to the side. He obtained physical access to the networks through the Seat Electronic Box, or SEB. These are installed two to a row, on each side of the aisle under passenger seats, on certain planes. After removing the cover to the SEB by “wiggling and Squeezing the box,” Roberts told agents he attached a Cat6 ethernet cable, with a modified connector, to the box and to his laptop and then used default IDs and passwords to gain access to the inflight entertainment system. Once on that network, he was able to gain access to other systems on the planes. Reaction in the security community to the new revelations in the affidavit have been harsh. Although Roberts hasn’t been charged yet with any crime, and there are questions about whether his actions really did cause the plane to list to the side or he simply thought they did, a number of security researchers have expressed shock that he attempted to tamper with a plane during a flight.
“I find it really hard to believe but if that is the case he deserves going to jail,” wrote Jaime Blasco, director of AlienVault Labs in a tweet. Alex Stamos, chief information security officer of Yahoo, wrote in a tweet, “You cannot promote the (true) idea that security research benefits humanity while defending research that endangered hundreds of innocents.”
Cyber-Attack Warning: Could Hackers Bring Down a Plane?
The officials from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) were not at all happy about what they were hearing. An unshaven 32-year-old from Spain, his hair pulled back in a ponytail, was talking about cockpit computers and their weaknesses and security loopholes. Specifically, he was telling the EASA officials how he had managed to buy original parts from aviation suppliers on Ebay for just a few hundred dollars. His goal was to simulate the data exchange between current passenger-jet models and air-traffic controllers on the ground in order to search for possible backdoors. His search was successful. Very successful.
Considering the highly automated nature of this plane? Considering what appears to be the real ability for hackers to take down planes? It wouldn't appear that there would be any need for a bomb or for a plane to be shot down, in order to cause a crash.Thoughts?