I spent the last couple of hours beginning to read the 9/11 Commission Report. While it is very sad reading, it is also extremely interesting, and I encourage everyone to take a look. I've so far read the first 50 pages, which review the circumstances surrounding the four plane hijackings, and all communication between the planes, ground control, and the military. Later in the report, historical information on Bin Ladin and terrorism in the USA is discussed. Everything is very well written.

One of the key applications of my current research on identity uncertainty is airplane tracking, and this report really highlights the deficiencies of the current radar tracking systems. In situations where an airplane's transponder is shut off (such as occurred during the highjackings), it is still possible to use radar beams to determine the approximate location (but not elevation) of these planes. However, there doesn't seem to be any integration between the two systems, and the airtraffic controllers must manually switch between the two systems. Without the transponders, how can you determine which blips correspond to which airplanes, and which blips correspond to the same airplane over the time it is being tracked? My research hopes to solve these problems, and having read this report, I have a much better understanding of its applicability - and it's urgency.
- posted by David Sontag @ 10:05 AM