Slashdot Mirror
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."
Do airlines that require all mobile phones to be switched off allow exceptions for some new phones such as the Sony-Erikson P800 which provide a non-cellular Airline mode?
Disclaimer: The above comment was made while under the influence of too much coding and not enough sleep.
Every time I fly theres some halfwit who gets all riled up when he's told to turn off his phone/gameboy/laptop/pda/whatever. Like he's so goddamned important he just cant stop talking/typing/jerking off while the plane takes off and lands.
They're right up there with the yokels who still think it's hilarious to make a joke about having a bomb, delaying the already brutal security points another few hours. "hey watch this, Clem, Ise gonna tell dem i gots me a esplosive bomb!"
Just sit down and shut up, or drive, or walk. I have places to go.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
RF interference stories occur once every little while, and I hope this finally shuts up the people who say, "my cell phone couldn't possibly crash a plane, the greedy airline just wants me to use their satphone".
It's true that your cell phone, BY ITSELF, will not cause the plane to explode and shower the countryside with flaming wreckage. However, look at any airline accident in the last ten years or so. In almost every case, a sequence of one-in-a-million flukes comes together at exactly the wrong time to cause a crash. In the article, they cite probable cases where RF interference caused the airplane to fly slightly off course, or caused errors in the flight controls. If something like that happened at exactly the wrong time, YOU BET there would be an accident, and your cellphone would be to blame.
I'm all for paranoia in the airline industry. It's what makes the flight safer than the drive to the airport.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
If you can detect my electronic device, please feel free to ask me to turn it off. If you can't - or won't - put a $50 detector in a $5 million aircraft, don't then try and tell me that you're as worried by stray RF as you are by Nelly Nicotene smoking in the toilets.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Oh yeah. I can't tell you how many times I had to fight someone to get to use one of those phones.
In fact, I've never seen one used. Well no that's not true. I've seen little kids (read: grown adults) play with them for the entire flight. (Look! It comes out of the SEAT!) I thought there was talk of discontinuing them on several airlines as well.
Just shut up and turn your damn phone off. I realize it's difficult since most people can't even disconnect while they are sitting in a movie theatre much less restrain themselves from answering (I mean, seriously, WHAT THE FUCK?), but would you mind trying to have a speck of consideration for a fraction of your day?
They may be making some money off of their Airfones, but I doubt they make much. On most recent flights that I've been on on typical airlines (Northwestern, ATA, Delta), I haven't seen the Airfones, and these weren't old planes.
On the other hand, if they could allow cell phones, that would probably bring in quite a few more ticket sales. "Fly (insert airline here), because you can use your cell phone on our flight!"
I know that home-built EMP devices have been the topic on Slashdot before. But I've been thinking that, since it is just electronic components, the parts needed to build an EMP gun/bomb can be brought through screening and onto an airplane. (Not fully assembled, mind you, so that it is a little less suspicious.)
It seems to me that this could result in a catastrophic event (takeoff/landing?), although I don't know the actual results of what one of these would end up doing. Anyone?
The only real solution is to harden the avionics against RF interference. It is only a matter of time before terrorists use ground-based microwave transmitters with directional antennas to harass airliners on takeoff/landing.
The very fact that FAA and FCC panic over passenger electronics is clue #1 that we have a problem and it goes well beyond the average moron with a cell phone.
This is really silly. We should be testing the avionics of planes to see if they can take RF of the differing frequencies that could bother it. If it can't, the plane should be grounded until it can be hardened to handle the RF. RF hardening is a science that the military industrial complex is quite apt at. "That's expensive, why don't we BAN USE OF the devices," cry the economically minded. In a day an age where you're in deep crap if you forget to take your pocket knife off a keychain, its quite possible to bring a laptop on a plane that can fake signals and jam avionics. Either ban laptops (yeah freaking right) as carry ons, or HARDEN THE FREAKING PLANE LIKE YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE ANYWAYS. If you're worried about RF leakage out the windows, put a metal screen over them. Come on folks. We KNOW how to shield things properly, and we know how to test if we did it properly. The test equipment doesn't cost that much (100K, which is nothing for an airline). On another rant, why don't cell base stations detect the case where the idiot is obviously up the the air? That's a problem that should be easily solvable via electronics, and not by regulation.
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
The age of a plane, unlike a car, has little to do with anything. Planes, unlike cars, are heavily inspected and very well maintained. Likewise, if a problem is suspected, recalled items get replaced fairly quickly. Unlike a car, where it may or not happen, and if it does get replaced, it may of been along any timeline.
Now then, since we are specifically talking about EM, it's topic that's been fairly well understood for a very long time now. So, just because the plane may be an older design doesn't suddenly increase it's risks. After all, it's not like we're talking about the Wright Flyer or something like that. In fact, older designs also tend to be updated. This is as true for the plans as it is for the planes themselves.
Comparing planes and cars is like comparing oranges maintained in a lab under close watch and scrutiny and apples being grow somewhere on some farm. In other words, I have no idea what the point is of the parent post.
You have two choices. You can fly in:
I'll take old-fashioned copper wires, thank you very much.
-JS -JS
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity...