9. Skim the article fairly quickly in order to find out:

1. why cameras are to be fitted in airliners;

2. where they will be located, and why;

3. what other purpose cameras might serve.

Watch It! T,hose Mile-High Dramas May Be on Film

A special report by Brian Moynahan, our Travel Correspondent

The age of inflight film-making has dawned.

Airbus Industrie, the European consortium of plane-makers, an­nounced last week that it is offering to install tiny cameras on its airliners. This will allow the airlines to see what their customers and crews get up to at 30,000 ft.

Though the main purpose is to combat hijacking, it seems cer- lain that film producers will be lining up to buy the ofFcuts.¹ Audi­ence participation has never been seen on this scale.

There will be no hiding place for the camera-shy, since the whole aircraft, cockpit, cabin, lavatories and all, will be covered by the craftily concealed cameras.

The airliner loo, most underestimated of dramatic settings, will at last come into its own. A lot of things get flushed down them, false passports, drugs, love letters and, on October 26 last, on a Thai International Airbus, a hand grenade.

Film would have revealed a Japanese gangster entering the smallest room 160 miles out of Osaka on a flight from Bangkok.

Deciding to rid himself of his hardware,² he carelessly let pin h come separated from grenade as he tossed it away. Explosion, compression and consternation of gangster.

Cameras will also be placed in the cockpit and the crew will n be able to turn them off — a new factor in a hijack. There is tec' nology to link the cameras with communication satellites that cou! beam terrorist movements to security on the ground, establishi the number of hijackers and possibly their identity.

International terrorism apart, some incidents clearly deservi immortality have failed to be preserved. The moment when a Br ish Airways VC 10 captain awoke on a night flight in the Far East find his co-pilot sleeping gently next to him and the night engin snoring behind. Or the Filipino captain of a Swiftair DC3 who tempted to hijack his own aircraft while flying a payroll³ to an field. There is the case of Richard McCoy, who set his mind on hi jacking a United Airline 727 on a flight from Denver. He wei straight to the lavatory. Indeed a crewman was sent to get him о of it before the flight could take off. A camera would have record him changing into a dark black curly wig, a false moustache, a blu suit with red stripes, a large blue tie and silvered glasses — befo presenting a hijack demand for cash.

No cabin full of extras⁴ could recapture the faces on the passe* gers when Eric Moody, a British Airways 747 captain, 37,000 above an Indonesian volcano announced, ‘Ladies and gentleme this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem and all fo„. engines have stopped. We are doing our utmost to get them work ing again’.

He succeeded. Put that wonderful economy of dialogue on film and there wouldn’t be a dry eye in the cinema. Enough of hijackers and pilots. Ordinary passengers will be the main subjects for the camera. A friend of mine was flying from Heathrow to Boston when he was taken violently ill with food poisoning. As his tem­perature soared, he began to lapse into unconsciousness. The stew­ard told him ‘Hang on, sir, there’s a doctor on the passenger list. We’re going to find him.’ A stewardess was giving my friend emergency oxygen by the time the steward returned. ‘I’m afraid we

can’t find him, sir,’ he said. ‘What’s his name?’ my friend asked. . 'Dr Mobbs.’ ‘Oh, my God,’ said my friend. ‘I’m Dr Mobbs.’

©Times Newspapers Ltd.

1. offcuts — piece of film left after the main part has been cut. (Also used of paper, fabric, wood, etc.).

2. hardware — weapon(s) (informal).

3. payroll — total amount of money paid to workers in a com­pany.

4. extras —’actors who play very small parts — usually in crowd scenes.