US man claims to have hacked into plane, altered its flight path

A US man has admitted to hacking a plane’s computer systems and slightly altering its course.

The FBI has confirmed that in February Chris Roberts, a US security researcher, hacked the in-flight entertainment systems on several flights and on one flight gained access to the plane’s thrust management computer and briefly changed its course.

In a warrant application filed in April, FBI agent Mark Hurley said that Mr Roberts made noticeable changes to the aircraft.

“(Roberts) stated that he thereby caused on of the airplane engines to climb resulting in a lateral or sideways movement of the plan during one of these flights,” he wrote.

The document states that Roberts claimed to have compromised the in-flight entertainment systems of around 20 flights in the past four years. He achieved this connecting his laptop to the electronics box under his seat after prying it open.

He claimed to have scanned the planes networks for flaws in its security and monitoring communications in and out of the cockpit.

Last month Roberts was escorted off a United Airlines flight after posting a tweet saying that he could hack into the alert system and make the planes oxygen masks drop down. This was not enough to stop him using Twitter to make fun of the incident. 

Although Roberts is a US security researcher, his activities were not official or approved by authorities. 

Roberts told Wired that the information released has been taken out of context.

“That paragraph that’s in there is one paragraph out of a lot of discussions, so there is context that is obviously missing which obviously I can’t say anything about,” he said.

United Airlines has launched a program that provides rewards to people who report security flaws in their apps, websites and portal but have strictly outlawed any testing on their aircraft systems.