2 civilian airliners down south of Moscow

In article ,
(running with scissors) wrote:

Pooh Bear wrote in message
...
Howard Berkowitz wrote:

Hijack is 7500. For some reason I haven't fathomed, the FAA ATC
procedure is to contact the aircraft by radio and ask "Sir, please
confirm you are squawking 7500."

Oh great ! What presence of mind ! What berk thought that one up ?

someone has a good presence of mind. let look at this:

"'Aircraft X', confirm your squawk, 'Center X'". thats taken what 7
words, how long does it take to say ?

Note that I did not make the statement about presence of mind. While I
don't have the procedure in front of me, those are not the words said by
ATC. Those words specifically are confirming a squawk of 7500.

Consistent with controller workload, occasional random squawk
verification requests might be a decent idea, to decrease suspicion. Of
the recent crop of hijackers, their English was imperfect, and a routine
query just might get by -- it might not.

now consider the following:
1. when an emergency code is squawked, say for example a 7500 squawk,
the controller doesnt leap in his chair exclaiming "A Hijack! A
Hijack! what do i do?" for someone else say, "****! get the president
on the phone!" rather:

I certainly did not suggest that was the procedure, which indeed would
be asinine.


2. transponders have a couple of different methods of entereing the
squawk code, some have numeric keypads, others have rotating dials.
some also have a feature to shortcut to a specific code.

accidental input of a specific code, has happened, does happen and
will happen. Personally speaking, durin the very first days of
instruction, a few moons ago now, i was advised to enter transponder
codes from the back first, to prevent any accidental emergency code
squwaks (with the rotational dial transponder its possible as you are
winding through the numbers to trigger an emergency code) and so set
off the alam bells at the handling control center.

And a simple confirmation request doesn't draw attention to 7500.



now, just before people go off on a tangent that the pilot could have
a gun to his head and is lectured on how to respond, controllers are
pretty adept at working things out for themselves.

You seem to be making quite a few assumptions about tangents.

[snip explanations of tangents]

so, after considering the above, is it more appropriate to say 7 words
and confirm the situation, or go all out into full blown emergency
situation. presence of mind yes. berk, no.


Were the words what you suggested, I would have less concern. Specific
confirmation of 7500, for exactly the reasons you mention below, do not
make sense from a human factors standpoint.

While terrorists may not be courteous enough to be repetitive, any 7500
is sufficient to alert NORAD. Fighters always can be recalled, but if
the hijacking is real and a suicide attack is a real possibility, time
is urgent. I can easily see a pilot's last living act to be changing the
squawk before a hostile takes his life, and control of the aircraft.

Has it occurred that just maybe, here and there, a hijacker just
might
not notice the transponder code was changed?

which is irrelevant either way. if it hasnt been changed he will
continue with his plan, if it has, he will continue with his plan. but
the ability remains to provide a non verbal indication of an emergency
situation.


Mercuns just love to screw up the admin way.

hardly.



Graham