4/16/04

Seymour Levine
4928 Maytime Lane
Culver City, CA 90230

Tel. # (310)559-2965
Email: sylevine 1 @sbcglobal.net

Commissioner Lee H. Hamilton

National Commission On Terrorist Attacks Upon The United States
301 7* Street, SW
Room 5125
Washington, DC 2047

Dear Commissioner Hamilton:

I have enclosed a paper that provides the only way of preventing disasters like 9/1 1 from occurring.
The paper is the culmination of work that I have been doing for over six years. I got into this by
losing a friend that I, while Chief Engineer of Northrop's Electronics Division, sent on a work
assignment in a fatal air crash. Over the years I feel that over 4000 people have lost their lives
needlessly as a result of aviation related deficiencies and still we haven't fixed the problem.

The problem is readily fixable and with your help we can close a known loophole that threatens
the very core of our democracy. The terrorists just took advantage of the deficiencies in our
aviation system that for years were known to exist. If we don't fix this problem the consequences
for the people of our nation will be even more horrific. The 9/1 1 disasters should have never
happened and it is imperative that we fix this systemic problem as quickly as possible.

Should you need further information on this subject please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,

Seymour (Sy) Levine

Note: I have included my bibliography that has a history of some of the work that I have been
doing in this area. Every time I give a talk on this subject everyone agrees that it would save
lives and yet I have been unable to alter the broken system and thus thousands of people have
died needlessly. You can get this much-needed project off the ground. An engineering job of
this nature can be readily accomplished. I have been fortunate enough to lead and work
successfully with the eovernment and industry on much more complex tasks.
We Can Prevent Fatal Crashes Like 9/11 From Occurring
1. INTRODUCTION
Commercial aviation is good, and it's an integral part of our every day high-speed
transportation system. Unfortunately, the benefit of commercial aviation has brought along
deaths from aircraft hijacking, aircraft problems and pilot error. Another ugly side of
commercial aviation is that it not only kills the aircraft passengers but it also kills people on the
ground and currently threatens the core of our democracy. Fortunately, using present state of
the art technology, such as SAFELANDER (patent pending), the ugly side of aviation can be
substantially minimized while reducing the cost of flying. We can prevent crashes like 9/11 and
a host of other fatal aviation accidents from occurring. SAFELANDER could be operational
within a couple of years and its implementation is extremely necessary for homeland security to
deter terrorists from attempting even more catastrophic aviation disasters. The following
sections will define SAFELANDER, explain how it works and how it prevents most fatal
aviation crashes attributed to terrorists, aircraft problems and pilot error.
2. DEFINITION OF SAFELANDER & HOW IT WORKS
SAFELANDER is a remote pilot system that can assume the control of medium to large
aircraft for the safety of the people onboard the aircraft and the people on the ground. It
uses the proven military remote piloting technology that has been in existence for over five
years supplemented with safety features that substantially enhance the control of aircraft
presently operating in congested airspace.
Situations arise where an aircraft is piloted in such a way as to put the public in harms way.
This can occur from a rogue pilot(s), terrorises), and/or problems aboard the aircraft that
renders the flight crew incapable of safely piloting the aircraft. An example of an aircraft
problem is what occurred to golfer Payne Stewart. He died on 10/25/1999 when the executive
jet aircraft, of which he was a passenger in, suddenly decompressed rendering the pilot
unconscious. The plane flew about 1500 miles strictly on its autopilot until it went into an
uncontrolled crash. Fortunately for people on the ground, it crashed into an unpopulated area.

Horrific examples of a terrorist aircraft hijacking occurred on September 11, 2001 where
two commercial carrier aircraft were used as missiles and steered into the World Trade Center,
Another commercial carrier aircraft was also used as a missile and steered into the Pentagon.
A fourth commercial carrier crashed in Pennsylvania when its passengers attempted to take
control away from the hijackers. Under 10/25/1999 and the 9/11/2001 scenarios, with
7/04 SAFELANDER (patent pending) Leslie Lenell »
 SAFELANDER, a remote pilot(s) located on the ground and using ciphered telemetry, would
take control of the aircraft(s) and pilot them away from large metropolitan areas and safely
land them at airfields that minimize the loss of life to both the people aboard the aircraft and
those located on the ground. Although SAFELANDER potentially wouldn't save all the lives, it
would substantially reduce the fatality count. SAFELANDER also acts as an effective deterrent
to aircraft hijacking, since it eliminates the hijackers' ability to inflict a large number of ground
deaths and/or destroy significant edifices.

To grasp a simple understanding of how SAFELANDER functions refer to Figure 1. It

depicts an operational commercial carrier aircraft transmitting its critical flight-control/black-
box data, which includes its 3-D position, to the ground. At the ground this data is used to track
the aircraft and to automatically check for deviations in its flight plan and other aircraft
problems. When either the onboard pilot requests that the aircraft be remotely piloted, or Air
Traffic Control (ATC) personnel notice substantial deviations in the aircraft's trajectory, or
Homeland Security personnel feel that the aircraft should be remotely piloted, a remote pilot is
notified to assume the piloting function of the uniquely specified aircraft. The remote pilot, who
resides in a secure ground-based high fidelity virtual reality aircraft cockpit simulator, can then
proceed, via telemetry, to assume control of the deviant aircraft. Aircraft simulators like this,
but without the remote pilot capability, are what we presently use to train and certify all
existing pilots. Remote pilots are licensed pilots for the designated aircraft that have been highly
trained in the remote piloting of aircraft and in the handling of emergency situations. They are
in direct communication with the onboard pilot, ATC and Homeland Security and operate in a
ground-based simulated environment that mimics the onboard pilot's environment. This
includes all voice communication, instrument and windshield displays, and virtual reality
windshield visibility. The instruments that the remote pilot(s) sees in the simulator are directly
derived in real-time, via air-to-ground telemetry, from the actual carrier aircraft's flight-
control/fight-recorder/black-box data. The remote pilot, via ground-to-air telemetry, sends real-
time control data to the aircraft's autopilot, etc. and electrical signals for the aircraft's
controlled surfaces, throttle, etc. These come from the actions of the remote pilot in the
simulator and as such the aircraft is remotely controlled just as if the onboard pilot was directly
in control. The remote pilot, with the aid of ATC, is capable of concurrently controlling a
plurality of aircraft both on the ground and in the air and can also send out warning messages
to other aircraft. A dedicated simulator processor is utilized in carrying out the extensive

4/17/04 SAFELANDER (patent pending) Leslie Lenell & Sy Levine svlevinel@,sbcglobal.net 2 of 7

 simulation computations required for providing a high fidelity virtual reality cockpit that
accurately and safely controls the aircraft in congested airspace.

3. HOW SAFELANDER CAN PREVENTS MOST FATAL AVIATION CRASHES

Over 78 % of fatal air crashes^ can be prevented and the percentages of preventable air
crashes due to terrorism is even higher.
To understand how remote pilot vehicle (RPV) technology can prevent a functional aircraft
from reeking havoc to people on the ground and destroying significant edifices, it's easy to start
by examining the Payne Stewart decompression fatal crash. Once ATC determined that
Stewart's executive jet had substantially deviated from its approved flight plan, they would
contact the SAFELANDER's remote pilot. The remote pilot would then take over the control of
that aircraft's autopilot, etc. and remotely pilot it to a safe landing. While this may (if the
aircraft was brought down in altitude quickly) have saved the lives of the people onboard the
aircraft, it most certainly would have provided a controlled landing at an airport that
minimized the loss of life and property. This controlled landing is far better and safer than
what occurred by letting the aircraft go into an uncontrolled crash and statistically hoping that
it would not crash into a building and no one on the ground would die. The important thing to
remember is that this type of crash and a host of other classes of fatal crashes can readily be
prevented.
Next lets examine terrorism in and from the sky in the 21st century. The threat of
terrorism in and from the sky has always been with aviation. Statistically, hijacking
represents about 5% of all aircraft passenger fatalities, but now with the use of large
aircraft as human guided missiles it represents a much higher percentage of the total
number of aircraft related fatalities. The threat takes several forms ranging from
hijacking from one destination to another, exploding an aircraft up in the sky or on the
ground, and turning a commercial or private aircraft into either a suicidal guided lethal
weapon or a bomber. Even the bomber function can have several variants in munitions
ranging from biological, chemical to nuclear bombs. In the current era the variants of the
threats by a formidable terrorist are mind-boggling. We are ill prepared to deal with the
threat from the sky. This has been easily shown in the 7/9/1997 crash of a lost A-
10/Thundrbolt/Warthog. The A-10, armed with two 500-pound bombs, flew some 800
miles over continental U.S. (CONUS) with no one knowing where it was going. It crashed
into a mountain in Colorado and it took months to find the plane. Its two bombs are still
missing. Even now, years after that disaster, we still don't have a system that tells us where

4/17/04 SAFELANDER (patent pending) Leslie Lenell & Sy Levine sylevinel@sbcglobal.net 3 of 7

 all of the aircraft are at all times, nor can a remote pilot take control of a potentially lethal
aircraft that is flying a deviant trajectory over CONUS. Yet we have the technology to do
both of these items. With the wide proliferation of aircraft capable of inflicting so much
damage on our population it is critical that, within the next two years, an operational
system be put in place to keep track of the potentially lethal vehicles in our skies and to
take remote control of deviant trajectory aircraft before they put the nation in harms way.
The remote piloting of aircraft is critical to our nation's security.
On September 11,2001, this threat which was known to many became a reality
(Note: In December of 2000 the question was posed on the Internet: What would happen if
a 707 would hit the World Trade Center? Some of the respondents included a 757 and one
felt that there would be about 6000 fatalities. Both accidents and terrorists were openly
discussed.). Four US commercial airliners were hijacked and none of the hijackings was
stopped at the departure terminal locations. Thus, like many of our other prior disasters,
we knew of the threats and we as a nation are the victims of our own inaction. On
September 11th the following occurred:
AIRCRAFT CARRIER FLIGHT DEPARTURE CRASH SITE AIRCRAFT
FATALITIES
BOEING 767 AAL 11 7:59 AM 8:46 AM WTC 92
BOEING 767 UAL 175 7:58 AM 9:03 AM WTC 65
BOEING 757 AAL 77 8:10 AM 9:43 AM PENTAGON 64
BOEING 757 UAL 93 8:44 AM 10:10 AM PA 44

A total of 265 died aboard aircraft and about 3000 died on the ground. The needless loss of
lives and the billions of dollars in physical damage could have readily been prevented. Note the
time differences between the crashes and realize that a single remote pilot, with the aid of ATC
using a SAFELANDER system, would have prevented most of these fatalities. Each aircraft's
deviation from its approved flight plan as well as other deviant behavior would have been
known in less than a minute. Then, based on real-time automated analysis of the information
going to the flight recorders radioed via telemetry to the ground, all of the people on the
ground and all of the edifices wouldn't have been harmed and possibly all of the aircraft would
have been safely landed. A single professional experienced and vehicle specific trained remote
pilot, operating from a secure high fidelity virtual reality simulator and using ciphered data
transmission, would have controlled all of these aircraft First, at the request of ATC and/or
security, the remote pilot would take control of the trajectory deviant Flight 11 aircraft and

4/17/04 SAFELANDER (patent pending) Leslie Lenell & Sy Levine svlevinel@.sbcglobal.net 4 of 7

 put it on autopilot with a new trajectory that would take it over a sparsely populated area
(e.g.: the ocean). Once Flight 111 was on autopilot the remote pilot would issue commands to
other aircraft still on the ground, which includes Flight 93, to shut them down and prevent
them from taking off until it was determined that the trajectory deviant aircraft was not
terrorist initiated. Then while Flight 11 was on autopilot with no way of the terrorist to further
guide its preplanned trajectory, the remote pilot would repeat this process with Flight 171 but
on a different trajectory that would also take it over a sparsely populated area. Similarly the
process would again be repeated for Fight 177. It is important to realize that the remote pilot
technology has been successfully used by the military for guiding unmanned air vehicles
(UAVs) for over five years. Why UAL Flight 93 was allowed to take off while AAL Flight 11
was known to be highjacked is a failure in our ATC and is just one of the reasons why these
fatalities should appear directly in the FAA and NTSB's aviation fatality rate(a). Even if Flight
93 was allowed to fly it could have easily been diverted by the remote pilot from its terrorist
initiated trajectory. Eventually the remote pilot would sequentially attempt to safely land each
aircraft at airfields that minimize the loss of life and critical edifices. Thus, SAFELANDER's
remote pilot technology would have drastically reduced the 9/11 fatalities.

Fatal crashes such as the 2/1/00, Alaska Airline Flight 261, and the 9/2/1998, Swissair Flight
111, as well as a host of other fatal crashes could have been prevented by eliminating the
existing data vacuum, where the flight-control data isn't transmitted to the ground in real-time,
and utilizing SAFELANDER's remote pilot technology.

The economic benefits derived from SAFELANDER include substantial savings generated
by the maximization of air carrier efficiency and the minimization of personal liability claims,
aircraft damage costs, search and rescue efforts, crash investigations, runway construction cost
and edifice replacement. The runway construction cost savings alone would save billions of
dollars. Lowering the number of air marshals and/or fighter aircraft in the sky at all times
(that are capable of shooting down trajectory deviant aircraft on short notice with its
concomitant intent and error problems) also reduces cost. Also, when the remote pilot system
is implemented to provide flight safety in glass cockpit commercial aircraft, it can decrease
cargo aircraft operational costs by permitting one onboard pilot to safely control an aircraft
instead of the present two. Reducing the number of pilots, avionics and weight in cargo
aircraft alone would save over 250 million-dollars annually. The reduction in liability claims
and damaged or lost aircraft would provide over 500 million-dollar savings annually. Thus,
implementing SAFELANDER will yield a billion dollars in annual economic benefits to the

4/17/04 SAFELANDER (patent pending) Leslie Lenell & Sy Levine sylevinel@sbcglobal.net 5 of 7

 traveling public and the aviation industry. SAFELANDER is not only the most humane thing
to do (e.g.: it is far more humane than having fighter pilots shoot down a passenger/carrier
aircraft, or the use of firearms aboard a pressurized aircraft, etc.), but it is critical to our
homeland security. It also pays substantial economic dividends.
4. CONCLUSION
This paper has shown that the 9/11 fatalities as well as a host of other major classes of
aviation fatal accidents were and are preventable. It is imperative for the protection of the
flying public, innocent people on the ground and homeland security that a program to
implement the real-time remote piloting of deviant trajectory aircraft be implemented
immediately. The system to accomplish this should be given a high national priority and
made operational in the shortest possible time. The remote piloting system would not only
discourage terrorists and enhance homeland security, but unlike other methods that are
both inhumane and costly, it would provide substantial economic benefits.

Note (a); The 9/11 air crashes fatalities do not appear in the normal F.AA. fatalities per mile or per flight
statistics since the F.A.A. excludes fatalities from terrorism and highjacking even though these are almost
always preventable via an enhanced ATC and aircraft avionics system. This exclusion of responsibility,
which has compromised our nation's security, is one of the fundamental reasons that the 9/11 disasters
occurred. By not having these disasters assigned as the FAA's responsibility, which it really was from the
number of hijackers that got on the planes to the way the FAA's system handled the problems on the ground
and in the sky, the FAA doesn't include it in their economic model. This economic model is utilized in the
FAA's decision process as to which safety improvements it will sponsor and fund. Thus, it is critical for the
FAA to take responsibility for these fatalities, which were to a major extent the FAA's fault, in order to
improve the system so disasters like 9/11, and a host of others, don't reoccur. Also for the good of the nation,
the FAA must get out of its autopsy and body count mode and become proactive. The deficiencies in our
obsolete ATC system were widely known to all that studied it. The terrorists simply exploited the known
holes in our system that the FAA should have closed years ago.

4/17/04 SAFELANDER (patent pending) Leslie Lenell & Sy Levine sylevinel@sbcglobal.net 6 of 7

 COMMUNICATION SATELLITE

GLOBAL COMMUNICATION LINK

UPLINK - CONTROL DATA & COMMUNICATION
FROM REMOTE PILOT SIMULATOR
DOWNLINK -AIRCRAFT FLIGHT CONTROL
DATA/BLACK-BOX & COMMUNICATION

DIRECT COMMUNICATION LINK

REMOTE PILOT SIMULATOR

COMMUNICATION ANTENNA SIMULATOR PROCESSOR

SIMULATED COCKPIT

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL (ATC)

& HOMELAND SECURITY

GROUND HIGH SPEED DATA LINK

FIGURE 1 SAFELANDER

4/17/04 SAFELANDER (patent pending) Leslie Lenell & Sy Levine svlevine 1 (ajsbcglobal.net 7 of 7
Biography: Sy
Since retiring from the Northrop Corporation, Sy Levine has been working on a world wide, real time, remote
piloting and monitoring systems, called SAFELANDER (patent pending) and RAFT (patented), that will significantly
reduce air fatalities while enhancing air transportation security and operational efficiency. Prior to this endeavor he was
toe Chief Engineer and Program Manager at the Northrop Grumman Corporation Electronic Systems Division in
Hawthorne, California where he directed the work of several hundred engineers. He's an internationally recognized
expert in program management, systems, navigation and servomechanisms. During a forty year career in the aerospace
industry, he managed advanced optical and laser sensor development, guidance navigation programs and new system
developments from conception through production and operational field utilization. He was also the Program Manager
of the B-2, STEALTH (In charge of the Stella Inertia! Navigation System), Peacekeeper, SR-71 and TR-1 Air Force
programs. In addition, he managed the Advanced Sensor Department that was responsible for a number of new
developments including the laser based Obstacle Avoidance System (OASYS) for piloting rotorcraft. This light
detection and ranging (lidar) system introduced the concept of a window of safety to prevent helicopters from striking
wires and other obstacles. Sy was a Director for Litton Guidance & Control and Manager of the Advanced Guidance
Systems Department at Sperry Gyroscope Company. Sy Levine holds eleven patents, ranging from inertia! navigation
through holography. One early patent was for the first commercial inertial navigation system, INS, which was put
aboard Pan American aircraft. It dramatically changed commercial aircraft navigation and safety. The INS is presently
used on all large commercial aircraft. His latest patent is for the Remote Aircraft Flight Recorder and Advisory
System (RAFT) that can substantially reduce air travel's fatal accident rate. He was also the chief scientist aboard the
USS Ethan Allen submarine - the one used in "The Hunt for Red October"- during its maiden voyage. Sy has been a
guest lecturer for the Institute of Navigation (ION) and has authored numerous papers including:

• 1995 NATO Advisory Group for Aerospace Research & Development (AGARD)
chapter on "Astro-Inertial Navigation Systems".

• November 1997, Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) 97

conference paper, "Remote Aircraft Flight Recorder and Advisory
Telemetry System and Its Application to FOQA".

• November 1998, 17th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC) paper,

"The Remote Aircraft Flight Recorder and Advisory Telemetry System
and its Application to Unifying the Total Digital Avionics System" .
It won the best session paper award.

• May 1999, National Transportation Board (NTSB) Symposium on

Transportation Recorders paper, "RAFT And Its Ability to Reduce the
Fatal Air Accidents by 78 % While Enhancing Air Space Capacity,
Operational Efficiency and Aircraft Security".
• November 2000, 1st International Aircraft Safety Association
Symposium, N.Y. paper, "The Remote Aircraft Flight Recorder and
Advisory Telemetry System, RAFT, Can Substantially Reduce Fatal Air
Accidents While Enhancing Air Space Capacity, Operational Efficiency
and Aircraft Security" .

• October 2001, Congressional Record, et.al., "Crashes into the

Pentagon & WTC Were Preventable by RAFT"

• 1997 & 2001 McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology

section on "Startrackers"

In addition, the July 1999 issue of Avionics featured an article on RAFT written by David Evans. Also RAFT has
been written up in the May 10, 1999 and June 28, 1999 issues of Air Safety Week by the Managing Editor David Evans.
Mr. Levine stated that using telemetry to obtain the information going to the flight recorders, in real-time, will
prevent the vast majority of aviatioa related fatalities. Mr. Levine's work was featured on the May 2000, BBC channel
4 television show "The Black Box". This TV show was rebroadcast throughout the world, including the US.