Hijacked Plane | featured news

Could this be the deadliest smartphone app ever? A German security consultant, who's also a commercial pilot, has demonstrated tools he says could be used to hijack an airplane remotely, using just an Android phone. Speaking at the Hack in the Box security summit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Hugo Teso said Wednesday that he spent three years developing SIMON, a framework of malicious code that could be used to attack and exploit airline security software, and an Android app to run it that he calls PlaneSploit.

For the first time, the full audio recordings of communications between military and civilian air traffic controllers as they were dealing with the hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001, have been made public.

A hijack threat halted an American Airlines flight just before takeoff Thursday, leaving the New York-bound jet sitting on the tarmac for several hours while it was searched and passengers were removed for extra scrutiny.

Russian special forces detained a man on Thursday who had taken control of an aircraft on a domestic flight to Moscow's Domodedovo airport, ITAR-TASS news agency cited a police spokesman as saying.

Police say a gunman who hijacked a plane in Jamaica has been captured after an eight-hour standoff with police.