"Phones on the plane!"
Posted on 08/13/2006 8:18:21 PM PDT by rawhide
A BRITISH Airways flight from London to New York turned around mid-flight and returned to London's Heathrow airport after a mobile phone started ringing, the airline said.
"Flight BA179 has returned to Heathrow as a precautionary measure," a spokeswoman for BA told AFP.
"A mobile phone was located on board the aircraft which none of the passengers appear to own."
"The captain assessed the situation with the BA security team at Heathrow and it was decided that it was safe to continue. However, the captain decided to return to Heathrow as a precaution.
"The captain explained his decision to the 217 passengers on board the aircraft. The aircraft will be security-searched at Heathrow before it departs again for New York this evening.
"We apologise to customers for the inconvenience but their safety is our number one priority and we will always err on the side of caution," she said.
It would be much easier to ban Muslims than electronics.
I would have answered it.
This is the "missing" factoid in the previously posted article.
In that case, don't even take the plane into the air. If it was ringing, that means it wasn't exploding.
Wrong number? Any unexplained explosions anywhere else about this time.
Yes!
Can we talk?
It's worth a try.
Might make them get their pitiful act together & join the human race!
Phone not wired to explosive? Phone rang? Obvious hoax. They should have flushed the phone, continued to destination, notified authorities and kept it out of the news. Stay tuned for copy-kat instances.
"Phones on the plane!"
They should be able to trace the number.
I thought US bound flights had restrictions on hand baggage such that phones were not permitted at present, if that still holds then the presence of a "stray" would make one nervous although it seems they took their time in turning back.
If they're midway to destination, why return to Heathrow/Gatwick?
You would have answered it and I would have turned the whole phone off so it couldn't trigger anything.
And that means what exactly? It confers innocence how? These days everything must be investigated, not because we wish to live forever but in order to vanquish our enemies.
If they were midway to destination, the phone would not have rung as they would have been way out of cell tower range. It had to be the alarm setting.
Tha bad guys really have us dancing, dancing, dancing...
What do you mean?
You can usually set a cell phone to work as an alarm clock. A phone set with an alarm will start ringing at a preset time, even if it were turned off (but with the battery left connected). Many phones also allow users to set "reminders" for future appointments and timers to countdown to an alarm.
If the flight were way out over the Atlantic Ocean (with no cell phone towers), there should have been "no service," so the ringing couldn't have come from a phone call. However, if the flight were halfway across the ocean, I don't understand why they pilot would return to Heathrow instead of continuing to the destination.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.