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Air Traffic Controller Lands Stricken Plane By SMS

Posted by timothy on from the r-u-here-yet-lol dept.

There's a new reason to hope that the no-cell-chatter bill now under consideration in the US doesn't bring with it a Faraday-cage mandate, and that reason is landing safely. Reader ma11achy writes with an excerpt from a scary story (with an SMS-based happy ending) from the Irish Times: "Five people on a flight from Kerry to Jersey received mobile phone text instructions from a quick-thinking air traffic controller when he guided them in to a safe landing at Cork, after the plane lost all onboard electrical power, communications and weather radar soon after take-off from Kerry airport."

2 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1 - People have an annoying habit of yelling into their cellphones for no good reason.

    2 - Maybe you don't hear complaints about people on cell phones in restaurants because you're too busy yelling into your cellphone.

    3 - Passengers are packed pretty tightly into those airplanes.

  2. "landing safety" -- bullshit by 1u3hr · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Timothy (The "editor") wrote "There's a new reason to hope that the no-cell-chatter bill now under consideration in the US doesn't bring with it a Faraday-cage mandate, and that reason is landing safely."

    How about reading TFA: "the twin-engined Piper plane ... with four passengers". It wasn't a fucking jumbo jet. That kind of plane is never going to be affected by any "no cell chatter" rules, much less have any "Faraday cage" built into it. And I think an airliner would have multiple multiple communications backups.

    Reminds me of the wackos who say cell phones should be allowed in cinemas "in case of terrorist attack".

    The only reason Timothy linked this with the cell phone ban on passenger planes is that it is guaranteed to start up a multi-page thread arguing that subject again, reardless of its irrelevance. Too bad he couldn't think of a way to get gun rights or evolution into the story too.