AIRBUS has filed a patent application on an anti-terror technology that it once ruled out as a non-starter.
In the nervous days after 9/11, Â鶹´«Ã½ asked the company if it would consider applying biometric devices, such as iris or fingerprint scanners, to the aircraft controls to ensure only the pilots could use them (22 September 2001, p 10). Airbus said such technology would be too difficult to deploy and could distract the crew.
But in US patent filing 2006/0245629, Airbus is clearly reconsidering cockpit biometrics, with the addition of wide-angle CCTV so the cabin crew or control tower…
