Hacker Chris Roberts told FBI he took control of United plane, FBI claims

A hacker who allegedly said he took over the controls of a plane in mid-flight has been investigated by the FBI — even as he pokes fun at the agency, saying he is only out to improve airline security.

Chris Roberts, of Denver’s One World Labs, a “security intelligence firm,” first made news last month after he tweeted what appeared to be a joke about “playing” with a United Airlines plane’s in-flight entertainment and crew-alerting system on April 15. Once he landed, he was questioned by the FBI for several hours. Some of his computer equipment was seized, and he was prevented from boarding another United flight.

“Lesson from this evening, don’t mention planes,” he later tweeted. “The Feds ARE listening, nice crew in Syracuse, left there naked of electronics.” In an interview after the incident with Wired, Roberts said he had not actually taken control of the plane, though he and his colleagues said it could be done. And that appeared to be that.

But now, in a search warrant obtained by Canada’s APTN, the FBI alleges Roberts told them he had taken control of the aircraft.

“He stated that he thereby caused one of the airplane engines to climb resulting in a lateral or sideways movement of the plane during one of these flights,” FBI Special Agent Mark Hurley wrote in his warrant application, as Wired reported. “He also stated that he used Vortex software after comprising/exploiting or ‘hacking’ the airplane’s networks. He used the software to monitor traffic from the cockpit system.”

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Roberts, a frequent speaker at security conferences who is very active on Twitter, seemed to want to clarify his intentions on Sunday.

“Over last 5 years my only interest has been to improve aircraft security,”Roberts tweeted. “Given the current situation I’ve been advised against saying much.”