LastChild (whom I will not be responding to) has asked this question before, and has been answered in a
recent thread. To summarize:
1. Radio control of passenger airliners is possible, but very difficult. The last time it was attempted, the aircraft missed its target, despite being flown under vastly less challenging conditions.
2. Autonomous control is also possible, perhaps using a modification of the BGM-104 Tomahawk guidance system, but would demand extensive rework of the particular plane, and could not possibly be simply retrofitted, e.g. by special commandos. The technology exists, but is difficult, and this would be a novel application.
3. Autopilot and autoland systems, either existing or proposed, do not have enough performance to carry out this mission. They do not operate at those speeds, are not suited to the target profile of the World Trade Center (although the Pentagon is vaguely plausible), and they rely upon expensive and complicated radio direction finding equipment that was definitely not in place at either site. The aircraft would also require some modification to switch over to these systems in flight automatically, albeit it would take less on-board rework than either
1. or
2. above.
4. There is no possible way pilots could have missed this equipment.
1. and
2. would make it difficult or impossible to enter the cabin at all.
5. Any such "remote control" scenario therefore demands complicity of the airlines and the crew of all four aircraft.
6. Any such equipment would have been recovered and identifiable from the crash site of UA 93.
7. The technical risk, development time, and cost are prohibitive. There's simply no good reason to do such a thing in the first place.
Honestly, this idea -- like so many from the Truth Movement -- is so stupid that it should never have been given a moment's consideration. Hey, I know, how about a robot pilot?? It works on
Star Trek, so they must be real! That idea is only slightly more insane. Seriously.
