Watch German Typhoons Intercept a Boeing 777 That Lost Contact with the Airport
foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com
foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5680442/ https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_%E2%80%93_Ihr_Urteil
A plane without wings flies about as well as any other largish tube, i.e. approximately straight down. As for a plane without engines - the ~5 successful jetliner landings w/o engines in the entire history are called Miracle This and Miracle That for a reason; those things need a lot of power just to keep in the air. Speaking of which: iginted fuel would be the least of your worries - destroyed wing parts means destroyed lift; again, good luck flying a brick.
Your argument is "look, people have won the lottery before, therefore it's a good idea" - an improbable happyend captures attention far more than the usual outcome of the accident lottery, which is something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_191
No! The Verfassungsgerichtshof ("supreme court") ruling, makes it illegal for the government to give an order to shoot down the airplane (i.e. to make a decision on actively killing some people to save others). Most lawyers, however, agree that the pilot of the nearby fighter jet would face none or minor legal consequences if deciding to shoot down such a rouge airplane. IANAL which is why I refer for details to the following German blog (by a well renowned judge): http://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2016-10/ard-fe...
http://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2013-04/verfassungsge...
Shooting down an aircraft is legal, but only if the cabinett gives the order. Which is still unrealistic, as the Minister of Defence can't order it alone even in an emergency. The judges recognised that this is suboptimal, but a change would need a change in the constitution. Some former ministers of defence are though on record they would still order it and deal with the legal consequences fallout later.
Then there is the question if the pilot alone (I guess that what the tv movie was about?) could make a decision? For example if the aircraft is flying towards a stadium or nuclear plant and the jet pilot has to make a decision in a split second.
https://www.nei.org/News-Media/Media-Room/News-Releases/Anal...
Mind-blowing is a bit of an exaggeration. it's just a video of three planes flying along side one another.
The wording from the airline statement was a bit funny: "the German Air Force deployed its aircraft to ensure the safety of the flight and its guests" - considering that their main purpose was presumably to blow up the jet if it posed a threat.
On a side note, I had never seen a video like this before and it really drives home what massive amounts of exhaust these machines put out.
It just looks this massove, but that's mistly due to condensation of water vapor. Sure, those engines have a massive throughput of air, but the visible "exhaust" is barely the result of burning kerosene.
If the pilot isnt responding to the radio, say if he turned to the wrong freq, then reports from passengers/crew of fighter jets will see the pilots recheck all coms gear. Them being there tells the pilots that something is very wrong, that they should start talking asap.
The fighters are trying to get the attention of passengers. Thats much safer than getting in front where the crew can see them (crew rarely look out the windows without good reason anyway).
Candian cf18s have a light mounted below the pilot to illuminate intercepted aircraft at night. Blink that a couple time and passengers will start screaming about UFOs.
Here is an article about US no-fly zones that describes some of the protocols in that case: https://www.wired.com/2017/02/air-force-fighters-keep-rogue-...
(After 9/11 a law was added in Germany that would permit shooting down a plane if there is no other option to prevent it being used in a sucessful attack, but said law was scrapped by the constitutional court. There has been some public debate about what to do in case such a situation happens anyways)
Here is the ICAO intercept procedures document (Appendix 2, starting on PDF page 58): http://www.icao.int/Meetings/anconf12/Document%20Archive/an0...
Many kneeboards and emergency procedure checklists have them handy as well.
Realistically, if you can remember to tune to 121.5 MHz (the universal VHF emergency frequency), that's going to be good enough for all but lost comms. For a lost comms scenario (including electrical failure), the intercept procedures are unlikely to come into play; you'll instead proceed to an airport and land.
Not every case of lost communication with an aircraft is due to hijacking. Sometimes it's due to a serious accident on board, such as cabin depressurisation. [0]
In these cases, observations from the intercepting aircraft can be vital to understanding the circumstances leading up to a plane crash.
[Contact] was briefly lost while flying over German airspace. Communication was safely restored within a few minutes.
I know there are some guidelines for the Luftwaffe like "a fighter needs to be able to get to any point in german airspace within 15 minutes" or so, but that all sounds VERY fast.
Edit: Formatting
In April 2016 a German-registered Challenger business jet flew east-west across the UK and was just about to enter Irish airspace when the RAF Typhoons reached it.
Then in October the same happened with a Volaris A320 that managed to fly most of the south-north extent of the UK before being intercepted, again just before leaving UK airspace.
In both cases if there had been any malicious intent then it could easily have been executed over major cities. In fact I watched that A320 fly over my town... The problem in the UK is that the main fighter bases are on the east coast, to combat the Soviet hordes that never arrived. So basically everything is a supersonic tail-chase for the interceptors unless it's coming from the Benelux countries. The RAF really needs to redispose its units for dealing with the new 'threat' but there's simply no money to do so.
And it looks like the 2 planes came from different bases.
If you look at this map of German airforce bases, one of the biggest is in Cologne (Köln-Wahn), so its no surprise that they were this quick
http://www.luftwaffe.de/portal/a/luftwaffe/start/team/stan/!...
Try flying over NYC out of contact for 15min and lets see how it goes.
When you file your travel plans you'll have to check in with different ATCs at different points, you are also likely to be contacted by ATCs depending on the flight plan, conditions and various other factors during the flight.
If you do not check in on schedule e.g. when there is a handover of ATCs or you do not respond to ATCs that trying to make contact with you, there will be a flag and an alert will be likely sent. If this goes on for minutes then they'll assume something was wrong and follow their procedure to make contact and investigate which might involve scrambling jets to make visual contact.
It's not like pilots can be too busy to respond to ATCs yes they might delay a response if they are in a middle of a sentence with a member of the air crew but that's a 5 seconds delay. Even a 1 minute delay would be flagged and you'll likely to be asked why you haven't responded or made contact on time.
Edit: And they picked the left side because that's where the pilot in charge of the plane is supposed to sit.
I guess Europe has some "Penguin" submarines, too.
sure, safety of the flight and guests, you mean humanely killed by rocket instead of hitting some target on ground?
At least a fighter pilot acting on his own accord seems to be legally able to shoot a plane down if a real danger seems to exists.
Could've been cabin preassure loss and all of them are passed out all dead just as much as hijacking.
Shooting down can be just as achieved with surface to air missiles.
We send jets to establish contact and use short range and if needed LOS communication to figure out what is going.
What could the fighter jets possibly do to "save" the passengers in such a situation?
(Other than "a wild mountain of paperwork appears")
Does anyone still believe this bullshit? Clearly there's nothing that the fighter jets could do to ensure the safety of the flight/passengers - the most they could do is to shoot the plane down in a safe area to avoid casualties on the ground, if it were e.g. controlled by terrorists.
And the media/institutions wonder why people don't trust them...
Perhaps hijackers seeing armed missiles out the window might rethink their negotiating position. You never used to hijack a plane to kill people that's fairly recent.
In other words, not all in-flight emergencies follow the Hollywood movie conventions ;)
So, please stop with the alternative facts and the conspiracy stuff. Not every country works like the US of A, unbelievably.
Yeah we're going need a source on that. Don't even think of pulling up that vague Grundgesetz about human dignity, the legality of refusing an order would be established AFTER the fact. To call such an order illegal before any court judgement is the very thing that you are branding as an alternative fact.
>The armed forces’ authorisation pursuant to § 14.3 of the Aviation Security Act (Luftsicherheitsgesetz – LuftSiG) to shoot down by the direct use of armed force an aircraft that is intended to be used against human lives is incompatible with the right to life under Article 2.2 sentence 1 of the Basic Law in conjunction with the guarantee of human dignity under Article 1.1 of the Basic Law to the extent that it affects persons on board the aircraft who are not participants in the crime.