Subject: [NEXTEL-1] FAA Considers Video Cameras Inside Planes

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 18:27:47 -0400

FAA Considers Video Cameras Inside Planes
By DOUG SIMPSON
Associated Press Writer
October 3, 2003, 6:04 PM EDT

NEW ORLEANS -- The federal government is evaluating technology that would put
video cameras on commercial flights so people on the ground could monitor pilots
and passengers and get an early warning of hijackings or other trouble on board.
The Boeing Co. demonstrated a satellite system to Federal Aviation Administration
officials in 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.
Pilots have fiercely opposed efforts to put cameras in cockpits as an infringement
of their authority.

Passenger advocates have supported cameras as a way to prevent terrorist acts.
FAA officials stressed that the tests, conducted in January and February, were
preliminary and said 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.

"Our role is exclusively to evaluate the technology. The FAA is not interested in
monitoring pilots," he said.

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 transmit video and to speak
with and send data from the air to workers on the ground, Loynes said.

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

Loynes described the tests as successful, with a few glitches in which video
images were briefly garbled.

"There were no insurmountable problems," he said.
The tests were part of Boeing's 2002 contract with the FAA to test various
security technologies.

Boeing officials discussed the technology at a recent security conference in New
Orleans. The city of Denver uses a similar video system to monitor part of its
public transit system.

For more than a decade, the FAA has considered various plans to put video cameras
in airplanes. In 2000, National Transportation Safety Board officials pushed a
plan for cockpit cameras, saying they aid air crash investigators.

The proposal was dropped after stiff opposition from pilots, who were concerned
that cameras could lead to a dilution of pilots' control over decisions made
during flights. Pilots said workers on the ground could misinterpret video images
and give orders based on incomplete information.

But advocates for air passengers say cameras would make air travel safer by
preventing terrorism and hijackings.

David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association, said cameras would
allow officials to assess the seriousness of a disturbance in the cabin. Officials
on the ground could then talk about the problem with the flight crew members, who
could learn about the situation without having to leave the cockpit.

"In the old days, one of the flight crew could come out and check things out, but
they can't do that anymore," Stempler said. "These days, we want to keep the
cockpit impenetrable to terrorists or hijackers."

* __

On the Net:
Boeing: http://www.boeing.com
Federal Aviation Administration: http://www.faa.gov

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-airplane-cameras,0,137293.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

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