Risk Management For Electronics on Aircraft

Phronesis writes "M. Granger Morgan and his graduate student Bill Strauss have a nice article in Issues in Science and Technology about the risks posed by electronic devices in flight. Unlike most articles on the subject, this one neither pooh-poohs the risks ('We have estimated that reported events are occurring at a rate of about 15 and perhaps as many as 25 per year') nor exaggerates them ('RF interference from consumer electronics is unlikely to have figured in more than a few percent of commercial air accidents, if any at all, during the past 10 years.'). Instead, it presents a sensible plan for dealing with the risks that will accompany the inevitable expansion of the range of electronic devices passengers will use in flight, including cell phones and wireless computer networking."

Comments

other historical information

[brentlaminack]

For those interested in historical perspectives on airline accidents and the ongoing debate on the risks of electronics, see the archives of the moderated netnews groups comp.risks. It's moderated by Peter G. Neumann at sri. One can get the archive at such places as Google Groups

Not only in-flight risks, but all types are discussed here. It's one of the more lucid discussions on the net. I've been following this newsgroup for the better part of 20 years.

It's not the wiring - from a private pilot

[noahbagels]

The problem is (mainly) not due to wiring.

The problem is in fact that the radio navagation aids 'navaids' operate at low frequencies and use geo-displacement / frequency modulation as part of the navigation method. The most common example, the VOR, or 'very high omnidirectional radial beacon' sends out a radially sweeping signal at 3600hz. This is such a low frequency that it can be affected by non-primary frequencies in small electronic devices. For example: CDMA/TDMA cellular phones, while operating at (at least one of them) 1900Mhz (AFAIK), they have polling frequencies that could be very close to 3600hz.


I would really like it if GPS was the primary navaid, but it is not. GPS was just recently approved (in the last two weeks) for IFR approaches, and until now, it wasn't even legal to conduct a full flight to commercial minimums (I think it's Category III ILS) - making it useless to commercial air carriers. Further, it's going to take the FAA at it's current rate, over a decade to convert the terrestrial navaid approaches and nav plates to include GPS routing and approaches.


Thus - here's just one example, where it's not the routing, and hopefully this will clear up the radio frequency problem... When I take off with my CFI into IFR (clouds, zero vis), I guarantee you that we both turn off our cell phones! (and that's in a 4 seater cessna 172)