Posted on 03/15/2014 2:24:35 PM PDT by nickcarraway
At first I thought with the number of people with cellphones on the plane someone would call for help. But then I remembered there are electronic devices which disable cell phones ability to make/receive calls that are readily available and cheap.
There are several wrong statements in this story but this is a fact.
I think a bigger problem is that cellphones go out of range. Once they are off-shore, and 20 or 30 miles from a celltower, they do not work.
Some have commented on how phones worked during 9/11. That’s not relevant here, because the 9/11 plane paths were entirely over land, where cell towers are plentiful.
Presumably there are bound manuals onboard that tell you have to disable most anything. In the case of an electrical short/fire in a given system you would need these instructions. With some planning you wouldn’t need to fumble with a four inch think binder, but a single peace of paper with only those exact instructions or you could memorize the fuse panel location, fuse locations, sizes and/or slot numbers.
Bookmark
If someone wants to steal something, they can do the research.
Is it possible to jam the transponder signal without actually turning off the equipment?
Why are the systems made available to the crew in such a way that they can be disabled? What’s the real world, legitimate reason for crew disabling these systems?
Seems simple enough. Were all maintenance personnel accounted for or is it being covered up?
If the plane was over the ocean when it went to 45,000 feet (IMO as part of a plan to decompress the cabin and kill the passengers), the plane would have been out of cell phone range. I think this was a sick but well-conceived theft of the plane by either the pilot, co-pilot or a crew member who had access to the cockpit.
“What’s the real world, legitimate reason for crew disabling these systems?”
Electrical problems. Shorts. Fires.
You’d want to be able to shut them down in cases like this.
The transponder too? Seems like that logic could extend to shutting down the black box. Thanks for the reply :)
Generally, no. You do not jam the transmitter - you jam the receiver. But the receiver is on an Iridium satellite. If you have to jam from the transmitter's position, you have to use 100 times as much power, and an antenna that is just as good - and even that may be not enough, depending on the modulation of the signal.
Thank you too much.
For the ACARS it gives us the ability to reset the system if it is not functioning propey. Similar to cntr-alt-del
I’ve always heard it’s to be able kill the power so you can extinguish an electrical fire.
Heard or read .. can't remember ACARS was disabled. Or experts (dime a dozen) believe it was disabled.
Have some diabolical terrorists refined the technology of ‘BAIT CARS’???
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