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Comment by guruz | Hacker News Reader

Semi-related: There was a TV event/movie in Germany/Austria/Switzerland last year about a (fictitious) court decision about an airforce pilot that shot down such a plane. The plane was taken hostage by terrorists and took course to a football stadium. The (non-fictitious) audience in Germany could vote if the pilot is guilty for killing the people in the aircraft or not. 86,9% in Germany voted that the pilot is not guilty.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5680442/ https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_%E2%80%93_Ihr_Urteil

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To give a bit more background: The law strongly disagrees with the court of public opinion here. It is illegal to shoot down an aircraft in such a situation in Germany. The German government at one point tried to change this and our constitutional court told them that their new law violated the constitution and has to be scrapped.

Very interesting. I wonder: what about gunning the engines until they fail? That would leave the plane unable to go far, but still able to make a risky crash landing using a nearby sea, road or field. Or even an appropriate runway if one timed things right.

Planes are pretty frail. You'd risk completely destroying the wings. That would leave you with a tube filled with 300 people 10km in the air - but rapidly approaching ground level.

A plane that's deemed a danger to anything is probably not 10km in the air. At that height it wouldn't even hit Mount Everest, let alone any people. And a plane without wings still has momentum and the lifting body effect going for it to assist an emergency landing. Then again, destroying (part of) the wings probably also causes all the fuel stored in the wings to ignite.

Ladies and gentlemen, Air Hollywood!

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.

Sometimes you only need one wing: https://theaviationist.com/2014/09/15/f-15-lands-with-one-wi...

See the part about "miracles": a black swan event doesn't mean that it's repeatable. I'm aware of such incidents - there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider , there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9 , there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549 - each of which is a case of great skill and great luck combined: nothing that could be adopted as standard operating procedures.

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

What's that phrase they use, "uncontrolled descent into terrain"?

This is akin to the notion of a police officer being able to shoot the gun out of a criminal's hand. A fighter jet's cannons aren't precision tools, they're designed to hose down a plane, not to make surgical attacks. Also, flying a jet without all engines operational can be difficult, especially if the pilots only have rudimentary training (as was the case with the 9/11 attackers).

"It is illegal to shoot down an aircraft in such a situation in Germany."

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...

*Rogue. https://picload.org/image/rgpodoir/air-canada-rouge-montreal...

There was a new judgement a few years ago:

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.

Didn't knew that updated decision. Thanks for the correction. I'm a bit disappointed right now that they've changed their opinion from a clear "not allowed", but at least the hurdles are pretty high.

The nuclear plant worry is an unrealistic trope. Most Western nuclear plants have a very robust containment dome that can handle the impact from an airliner.

https://www.nei.org/News-Media/Media-Room/News-Releases/Anal...

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