1. There's more that can run down and around a circuit than the electrical current that it was designed to carry....inductively or otherwise. Always remembering TWA800 and United 811, you could say that the Law of Unintended Consequences can strike wherever it wishes. So, if I was a terrorist looking to damage the aircraft's electrical system via plugging into it...... what are my chances of success:
a. in FBW?
b. in non FBW?
2. If I were to utilise TASER/ stun gun type technology with high spec/heavy-duty capacitors what would the effect be upon the aircraft for a discharge:
a. via the power port/receptacle (of types various)?
b. into the electrical system(wiring bundles) elsewhere (say, within the unobserved confines of a lavatory or in the galley area)?
3. Would I need a large battery for my device - or could I just plug it into the aircraft power supply to charge up its capacitors?
4. Now I know that an aircraft is well-bonded, sheds external static charges and is an effective Faraday Cage against external HIRF, lightning strikes etc - BUT, being on the inside of the fuselage, can I (as a terr with the right piece of kit) damage the aircraft electrical system either overtly or covertly?
5. What could be the extent of such system damage?
a. blown breakers and fuses?
b. tripping gens? rebooting computers, fried CPU's, soldered relays, zapped solenoids, diddled diodes, clean-screens ?
c. destruction of sensitive electronic components?
d. electrical fire?
e. intermittent "faults"
f. antenna coupler burn-outs?
g. exploitation of frequency sensitivity of certain equipts
h. comms disruption
i. RAIM outages of the GPS, transponder outages
j. EGPWS/TCAS false alarms
k. bus sensing/switching faults
l. etc etc
6. Are there "currently" (within a/c systems) any CPD's designed to obviate such non-accidental damage? Thermally tripped CB's may not act fast enough to obviate damage (is my point).
7. Are there any particular systems more vulnerable than others?
8. If I had particular aircraft knowledge, could I access vulnerable wiring (i.e. wiring not associated with IFE, galley or seat-provided power-plugs)?
9. Before answering, just remember that aircraft designers use the fact that airplanes have to be 100% well-bonded through saving wiring weight by utilising the metal fuselage as an earth return. This "short-cut" introduces is own problems of course (in the form of system intermittencies and non-reproducible faults that might not otherwise occur) - but it possibly also provides yet another vulnerability (to electronic attack).
10. The reason I ask this is that:
a. Airbus was posed these questions by a journo mate (at my instigation) and proved to be both evasive and hostile (to the point of no further correspondence). It came up in the context of the possible use of stunguns and TASERS - and the unintended consequences of connecting with the aircraft versus the bad-guys.
There may be nil vulnerability - but vertical fins were never supposed to fall off either. It may well be deftly avoided on the grounds of "security", or they may just lie about it - however it might be more appropriate to just answer the question and if there is a vulnerability, finding out about it before some Al Qaeda "wise-guy" answers the question for us.
b. the FBI is aware that a gent with a M.E. type name has been asking similar questions. How do I know this? The gent's emailed query was reported to them.