I am going to ask y'all to put aside your petty gripes for a few minutes, and read this post.
At or about 2145 EST this evening, my wife, The Missus, was participating in an AOL chat room. One of the chatters explained he was on board an aircraft in flight.
As the chat thread progressed, this flyer began posting small blurbs, like, "The plane's getting rougher", and "It's jinking a lot." Then one final post, "The cockpit doors have slammed shut." Then nothing.
The rest of the chatters, Missus included, began poinging this person, but there was no response. Missus says the last post was about 2200 EST.
The poster claims to have been "over blue water" at the time.
Now Folks, a storm starts with a slight breeze. If Missus was just eye-witness to something going on with an in-flight plane, then I need to know a few things:
- Has anyone seen any wire or cable reports, or breaking news, of an down aircraft, within the last 90 minutes? Time of incident I'd estimate about 2200 EST;
- I need to be educated here: what restrictions/limits are there for Internet use on board a commercial flight? I know that domestic carriers forbid cel phone use, except for certain times like final approach, or something, but is there any way for someone to use wireless Web on a flight?
- It sounds to me like this was a domestic flight, or possibly, given the "blue water" reference, an international flight that was in the corridor for landing.
I'm at home, finally, away from my desk at the Ops Center, and my access to stuff is severely curtailed. I request the help of alert FReepers to confirm/deny/debunk all what I've just heard.
Thanks In Advance,
SARGE