Electronic Devices on Airplanes

Miscellaneous hoaxes, conspiracies and all around bad things not covered elsewhere.

Electronic Devices on Airplanes

Postby Мастер » Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:14 am

Do electronic devices used by passengers interfere with systems on a modern airplane, or is this a woo theory which has gone mainstream?

I know they must, because a flight attendant on Candy's bankrupt airline told me that if they didn't, there wouldn't be a rule against them...
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Postby Frogmarch » Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:24 am

only mobile phones I think.

edit-perhaps things with bluetooth as well, I dont know.
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Postby Candy » Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:29 am

The answer is no. The FCC forbids it not the FAA.
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Postby Мастер » Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:30 am

Intereference from mobile phones sounds plausible, but I have heard that testing by both Boeing and Airbus with different phones failed to cause any interference even with antennas jammed underneath the cockpit panels (can't find any reference though). The rule in the US for phones was, if I understand correctly, because rapid movement of phones might cause problems for mobile networks, not airplane systems, and that this problem is now fixed. Don't know if bans in other countries are for the same reason.

On British Airways, they made me turn off my GPS. Then on Air Canada, an off-duty flight attendant sitting next to me warned me whenever the real flight attendant came by, so I wouldn't be caught operating my GPS. She was nice, but her English was strange and I don't speak French at all...

But everything I have is anecdotal, I don't have any hard evidence...
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Postby Мастер » Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:32 am

Candy wrote:The answer is no. The FCC forbids it not the FAA.


This is what I thought, but every flight attendant from your bankrupt airline insists that I am recklessly endangering their lives if I operate a GPS device with no transmitter. When I flew to Hawaii, they had a contest to see who could guess when we were exactly half way there. I won. :D
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Postby Candy » Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:33 am

Candy wrote:The answer is no. The FCC forbids it not the FAA.


Use your electronic devices all you want. The laws will be changing soon. :D
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Postby Candy » Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:35 am

Khrushchev's Other Shoe wrote:
Candy wrote:The answer is no. The FCC forbids it not the FAA.


This is what I thought, but every flight attendant from your bankrupt airline insists that I am recklessly endangering their lives if I operate a GPS device with no transmitter. When I flew to Hawaii, they had a contest to see who could guess when we were exactly half way there. I won. :D


That's because they are confusing the FCC with the FAA. Most people do. :oops:
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Postby Мастер » Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:35 am

Candy wrote:Use your electronic devices all you want. The laws will be changing soon. :D


This is good, I always thought this was a woo theory. But they always announce, "it is now safe to use electronic devices." The correct announcement would be "it is not permitted to use electronic devices."
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Postby Мастер » Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:38 am

Candy wrote:That's because they are confusing the FCC with the FAA. Most people do. :oops:


But the FCC rule is for mobile phones only, right? All the other rules are just because airlines want to be extra silly?

When British Airways made me turn off my GPS in the middle of the Sahara desert, I couldn't help but wonder what ground systems I was interfering with :D
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Postby Candy » Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:39 am

Khrushchev's Other Shoe wrote:This is good, I always thought this was a woo theory. But they always announce, "it is now safe to use electronic devices." The correct announcement would be "it is not permitted to use electronic devices."


I'm sure the later was originally said, but through time, it got changed to scare people into following the FCC law. The FCC are some powerful people. :evil:
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Postby Candy » Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:43 am

Khrushchev's Other Shoe wrote:But the FCC rule is for mobile phones only, right? All the other rules are just because airlines want to be extra silly?

When British Airways made me turn off my GPS in the middle of the Sahara desert, I couldn't help but wonder what ground systems I was interfering with :D


I think it just kind of became standard with all electronic devices to control the masses (is this a word). I agree, it's silly.
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Postby Lance » Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:53 am

I used a GPS on a domestic (US) ATA flight a few years ago. Nobody said a word to me about it and I didn't try to hide it.
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Postby Мастер » Mon Aug 08, 2005 1:25 am

Lance wrote:I used a GPS on a domestic (US) ATA flight a few years ago. Nobody said a word to me about it and I didn't try to hide it.


I use one all the time. Mine only works if it is pressed up against the window. Different airlines seem to have different policies, and some airlines have several policies, depending on the flight :) If you are on a woo airline that believes a GPS interferes with the flight, then a newspaper makes nice camouflage, if you don't have a cooperative off-duty French-Canadian flight attendant sitting next to you, who can keep a lookout...

Once I used one right next to a military installation in Singapore, but I thought this might not look so good if someone comes out and asks what I am doing...
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Postby hippietrekx » Mon Aug 08, 2005 4:03 am

:( They wouldn't let me do my Algebra homework with my calculator when I was on the plane going to Pheonix for the International Science and Engineering Fair (I have to find a new project soon! AH!).

One of the flight attendants just took it out of my hand without warning. I'd rather she took my hand! That was a $175 calculator! She didn't even say anything, just took it into the galley, and on the way started hitting buttons to turn it off (it needs a combination of buttons to shut off)! :shock:

I just sort of looked at my hand and then the attendant in confusion, and my mom started to actually yell [ :oops: ] because it was her $175 that paid for it. I tried to calm her down, and the co-pilot wound up coming back to shut her up, and gave me back my calculator. I guess that from all of the button hitting the attendant did, all of my saved equations were erased, the thing was talking to me in French, and the display options were messed up. :shock:

:( All she had to do was tell me to put it away. I mean, it runs off of four watch batteries, and tons of people had watches, so I didn't think it counted as an "electronic device." And it wasn't listed in the "Please turn off all electronic devices such as..." speech...

I'm sad. I had a chunk of a version of a string theory equation saved in it for no apparent reason, but I liked it there. And then I had to do half of my graphs on it for my homework on it again...

Ok, I'm done ranting and mourning over my data-loss.

Awww... now I'm more sad, 'cause Data died in ST 10... :cry:

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Postby Bill EE » Mon Aug 08, 2005 5:21 am

The whole thing is a big mess - the FAA started the ban because one airliner went off course by 90 mile (as I remember it) in the very early days of cell phones. The reason given was that GPS units back then used an IF of 140 MHz and the old analog cell phones put out a log of power (accidentially) at that frequency. In addition, the old navigation beacons (VORTAC) operate arround the same band. Combined this meant the airliner could not properly navigate. If that was the real problem, I don't know. The whole story has yet, as far as I know, come out.

Of course this started a major pecker size contest with the FAA claiming juridiction and the FCC claiming juridiction. Of course this brings out all the other interests - first the companies that wanted to sell phone services on airplanes - the cell phone companies that did not want their tower congested with a large number of call (phones from airliners can reach a lot more towers than ground based phones). Second the passengers wanted to use their phones and many found they could (if they hide the fact). New requirements were put in place in the 90's for testing aviation electronics to eliminate the problem. New feature were mandated in '03 (I believe) on the cell tower electronics not to accept signals with high Doppler shifts (indicating a phone in flight). This really applies to digital phones only.

In the next few years they are probably going to install the equivalent of a cell tower in the cabin of the plane (I have a friend working on one such system) so you can use your phone in flight (and probably get charged an arm and a leg).
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Postby Candy » Mon Aug 08, 2005 5:30 am

So that's why the FAA doesn't care anymore. Interesting, Bill EE.
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Postby Bill EE » Mon Aug 08, 2005 5:36 am

Yea - I think the FAA wants to be as far away from it as possible! The whole thing is just bad decision making combined with politics.
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Postby Мастер » Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:52 pm

Some airlines that believe all electronic devices are bad also fly 757 aircraft with eight television sets up and down the aisle. And sometimes they have them running at times when electronic devices are prohibited. If you ask a flight attendant why these electronic devices can stay on, they answer that these are specially engineered televisions that do not emit any electromagnetic radiation. If you then ask, if they don't emit any electromagnetic radiation, how can we see the picture, then they become very upset and threaten to put you on the aggressive flier list.

I also thought maybe I should tell them to ask everyone to try to think as little as possible, so their brain waves don't interfere with the airplane systems. But I think that might get me on the aggressive flier list...

Also, they always give a safety announcement. I looked in an aviation safety database for incidents in which passenger action led to injury or death. The only cases I could find were hijackings and bombings. So maybe the safety announcement should be, don't hijack or blow up the plane. Other than that, it seems the passengers should give the safety announcement to the crew.
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Postby gillianren » Tue Aug 09, 2005 12:23 am

look, I don't know whether it does or doesn't hurt anything to use a cell phone on an airplane. I've just always wondered who you have to talk to that bad.
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Postby Candy » Tue Aug 09, 2005 1:50 am

gillianren wrote:look, I don't know whether it does or doesn't hurt anything to use a cell phone on an airplane. I've just always wondered who you have to talk to that bad.


Tell that to Todd Beamer! :(
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Postby Мастер » Tue Aug 09, 2005 3:20 am

gillianren wrote:look, I don't know whether it does or doesn't hurt anything to use a cell phone on an airplane. I've just always wondered who you have to talk to that bad.


Try flying from SE Asia to South America. All you need to do is have to talk to somebody in the next day or two, and you have a problem if you can't call from the air...
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Postby Candy » Tue Aug 09, 2005 3:46 am

We Remember!

Passenger and crew phone calls
Much of what happened on the plane has been derived from the many phone calls made by passengers and crew, mainly through mobile phones. Ten passengers and two crew members made calls after the hijacking began. This was in marked contrast to the other three planes, where few phone calls were made. It has thus been possible to assemble a detailed yet incomplete picture of what happened on board through these calls.

All said that there were three rather than four hijackers. This has been interpreted as meaning that one of them (probably Jarrah, who was seated in the front row (seat 1B) and who is accepted as being the pilot) entered the cockpit right away and did not reemerge. He was thus not seen by the others on the plane.

In the passenger area, three hijackers wearing red bandannas herded most of the passengers and crew to the back of the plane. Two were armed with knives and the third held a box that supposedly contained a bomb. The remaining passengers were kept in the first class area. One male passenger was stabbed, probably before the herding started. This person was never named or described in the phone calls, but is believed by authorities to be Mark Rothenberg, the only first-class passenger who did not make a phone call. The pilot and first officer were also stabbed, probably during the takeover of the cockpit, and were critically wounded or killed at that point. A flight attendant was held in the cockpit and may have been stabbed and killed - she was most likely the chief flight attendant, Debra Welsh. It has being speculated by some that she attempted to perform CPR on either Mark Rothenberg or one of the pilots and refused to stop when the hijackers ordered her to.

The passengers and crew became aware through the phone calls of what had happened to Flights 11, 175 and 77.

One first-class passenger, Tom Burnett, called his wife four times about the hijacking; she alerted the FBI. He described the death of the male passenger, asked about the other planes and stated at the end of the fourth call: "Don't worry. We're going to do something."

Another first class passenger, Mark Bingham, called his mother and reported that three hijackers had taken over the plane. He gave little detail of them. He was apparently cut off at the end of his brief call, and did not return any of the phone calls from friends and family. One more first class passenger, Edward Felt, called 911 to alert the authorities that the plane had been hijacked and the passengers were resisting. His brief call was also cut off.

A coach-class passenger, Jeremy Glick, called his wife in New York and reported that three "Iranian looking" men had hijacked the plane, one of whom had a red box strapped to his waist which they claimed to be a bomb. Jeremy asked his wife if it was true that planes had crashed into the World Trade Center, as he had heard from other passengers. He then stated that he was going to participate in the charge.

Todd Beamer, another coach-class passenger, tried to place a credit card call through a phone located on the back of a plane seat but was routed to a customer-service representative instead, who passed him on to supervisor Lisa Jefferson. Beamer reported that one passenger was dead, and, later, that the pilot and first officer were wounded. He was also on the phone when the plane made its turn in a south-easterly direction, a move that had him briefly panicking. Later, he told the operator that some of the plane's passengers were planning "to jump" the hijackers.

Other persons who made phone calls to relatives include passenger Honor Wainio and flight attendants CeeCee Lyles and Sandra Bradshaw. They all mentioned charges to the cockpit by way of final words. Reference was also made by the flight attendants to using boiling water on the hijackers.

Several persons such as Glick, Beamer and Lyles put their phones down but did not hang up as they went away. This enabled those on the other end to listen to what happened next, but little could be heard or understood other than screams.
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Postby Мастер » Tue Aug 09, 2005 3:49 am

Let's roll...
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Postby Candy » Tue Aug 09, 2005 3:54 am

Khrushchev's Other Shoe wrote:Let's roll...


You know what's funny? I'd never heard that expression before 9/11. Us midwesterner's always say, "Let's rock!" I now say, "Let's roll!" 8)
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Postby gillianren » Wed Aug 10, 2005 6:42 pm

right, so that's an exception. they happen. but the average flight isn't transpacific or held up by hijackers, right?
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