Maybe its time to come up with some ingenious solution to the problem because the last thing any passenger wants to see is fighter jets trying to shoot them down. :-) That's a scary thought. I am not a pilot or an expert on the subject but I am aware that some modern, newer planes, let the computers do the flying and the role of the pilots is to monitor these systems during flight. I've read that the way pilots are trained has changed quite a bit, at least the training of Airbus pilots. Correct me if I am wrong, but I have also heard that it is possible for a plane to land itself in case of major emergency. However the biggest challenge in implementing this as a policy is not on the technology side, but the unions and insurance companies. Is this at least partially true?