US government considers video cameras insider commercial planes

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, October 04, 2003

US government considers video cameras insider commercial planes

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The US government could install monitoring video cameras inside commercial airplanes soon in orde rto get an early warning of hijackings or other trouble on board, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials said Friday.

The Boeing Co. demonstrated a satellite system to FAA officialsin two test flights early this year, showing how images could be sent from a plane to the ground, said John Loynes, an FAA program manager in Washington.

A Boeing 737, equipped with seven cameras, transmitted images of the cockpit and cabin during the test flights in January and February.

About 20 federal and Boeing workers, most of them engineers, were on board the round-trip flights from Seattle. Federal air marshals also tested Boeing technology that allows the use of hand-held devices to communicate with the ground control through sending video, voice and data.

One camera showed the pilots from behind, one was in the first class area and the others showed the rest of the passenger area. Workers on the ground could choose which camera view to look at bytouching a computer screen, said Joseph Tedino, a Boeing spokesman.

The FAA officials stressed the tests were preliminary, adding that the agency's focus is purely on whether the technology would affect air safety.

There will be further tests and other agencies could decide whether or how to use the technology, said Greg Martin, FAA chief spokesman.

Pilots have fiercely opposed efforts to put cameras in cockpitsas an infringement of their authority. But passenger advocates have supported cameras as a way to prevent terrorist acts.

The US government has tightened security at airports around thecountry since the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001, in which terrorists slammed hijacked commercial airliners into World Trade Center towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC.

Meanwhile, the US military revealed Thursday that they have been practicing frequently how to shoot down hijacked commercial airliners as a way to thwart future terrorist attacks on American cities from the air.

During the drills, the North American Aerospace Defense Command(Norad) rented commercial jets, loaded them with military volunteers and carried out mock hijackings up to the point where airborne Air Force fighter pilots would fire air-to-air missiles, said General Ralph Eberhart of the Air Force, who heads Norad.

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