Singapore's firm eyes autonomous plane concept

ST Engineering offers turning redundant freighters into remotely-controlled cargo planes and the idea gains popularity during the country’s airshow event.

An Airbus A350-1000 is displayed during a media preview at the Singapore Airshow on February 4, 2018
Reuters

An Airbus A350-1000 is displayed during a media preview at the Singapore Airshow on February 4, 2018

Singapore Technologies Engineering says it has started working on developing unmanned cargo planes which attracts too much attention during the airshow event in the country.

Industry experts say this could be the first step towards pilotless passenger planes while the new concept could also solve one of the industry's biggest headaches: a profound shortage in pilots.

"There's a world-wide shortage of pilots, its been going on for quite a number of years, it's getting more acute as we go forward," says Richard Brown, head of ICF consulting services company.

TRT World’s Sandy Huang visits the Singapore Airshow to find out how close we are getting to planes without pilots.

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