Lautenberg urges feds to probe remote hijacking concerns

Federal authorities have dismissed concerns raised by a security consultant who last week suggested that commercial airliners were vulnerable to remote hijacking by terrorists armed with little more than a smartphone and the right killer app.

But U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg doesn’t want to take any chances, and New Jersey’s senior senator has written to the U.S. secretaries of transportation and homeland security asking them to investigate the threat and how to stop it.