Boeing says Roberts hack of airplane never happened
Posted by: Timothy Weaver on 05/28/2015 05:58 AM
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If you remember, Chris Roberts said he hacked a plane in flight.
Equal to the clamor over the alleged actions, however, was that over the veracity of the claim. However, Boeing and independent aviation experts asserted that what the FBI affidavit described was technically impossible.
Boeing said in a statement: “While these systems receive [plane] position data and have communication links, the design isolates them from the other systems on airplanes performing critical and essential functions."
Roberts claimed that he was able to change the thrust of one engine and make the airplane veer to one side. However, Peter Lemme, who was a lead engineer on Boeing’s thrust-management system for eight years, said the system provides the auto-throttle function that actually controls the engine thrust, and doesn’t allow the throttles for the engines to operate independently of one another.
“The auto-throttle wants to keep the engines together. It does not want to split the engines,” he says. “The only command [available] is to drive them together, not to drive them apart.” Consequently, there’s no command Roberts could have issued that would have caused one engine to thrust separately from the other.
All of this appears to add up to the conclusion that there’s no way Roberts could have hacked the thrust controls of a plane and manipulated the aircraft, either through the IEF, the SATCOM or anything else.
Source: Wired
Equal to the clamor over the alleged actions, however, was that over the veracity of the claim. However, Boeing and independent aviation experts asserted that what the FBI affidavit described was technically impossible.Boeing said in a statement: “While these systems receive [plane] position data and have communication links, the design isolates them from the other systems on airplanes performing critical and essential functions."
Roberts claimed that he was able to change the thrust of one engine and make the airplane veer to one side. However, Peter Lemme, who was a lead engineer on Boeing’s thrust-management system for eight years, said the system provides the auto-throttle function that actually controls the engine thrust, and doesn’t allow the throttles for the engines to operate independently of one another.
“The auto-throttle wants to keep the engines together. It does not want to split the engines,” he says. “The only command [available] is to drive them together, not to drive them apart.” Consequently, there’s no command Roberts could have issued that would have caused one engine to thrust separately from the other.
All of this appears to add up to the conclusion that there’s no way Roberts could have hacked the thrust controls of a plane and manipulated the aircraft, either through the IEF, the SATCOM or anything else.
Source: Wired
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