A monitoring and control system for manned vehicles is being proposed, wherein an automatic early-on recognition of emergencies and an automatic specification of measures to be taken in accordance with a separate escalation assessment concerning the development of the emergency in question are made possible, in that data packets comprising a vehicle identification field, a time indicator field, a continuously updated position field, a continuously updated vehicle-status field and a pilot-confirmation field are either transmitted from the vehicle to a ground station and evaluated there or is transmitted to the ground station already having been evaluated, wherein continuous storing of the data packets is carried out over a limited period of time in the ground station when a first evaluation result is present; in the event of the occurrence of a second particular evaluation result storing is carried out over a longer period of time and at the same time a switchover signal is transmitted to the vehicle, which switchover signal switches over the control from being linked with the cockpit to being linked with the autopilot control station control without being subject to influence by the cockpit, and wherein switching back to the control means being linked with the cockpit is only effected by a reset signal which again is not subject to influence by the cockpit, which reset signal is generated by the ground station, depending on a third particular evaluation result concerning the pilot-confirmation field, and transmitted to the vehicle.