Air Traffic Controller Lands Stricken Plane By SMS

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."

Comments

thats standard procedure

[Spliffster]

My Brother flies an A320 for BA.

They have constant contact via cell phone to their dispatchers. Even tho they require flight passengers to shut down theirs.

Once the shit hits the fan, I guess it would be the first they use to contact Ground for any vectors, weather infromation or whatsoever.

-S

Re:What?

[eharvill]

I don't see what the big deal is. People talking on a cell phone is hardly any different than two people talking to each other on the plane. Except you only get (have) to hear one side of the conversation.

If you don't want to hear it, then get ear plugs, plug in your iPod, or just not listen. I mean, seriously, you don't hear people complaining about cell phones at restaurants, yet it is the same concept.

When did flying become a "quiet zone"?

I think it would be a non-issue if people talking on cell phones would use a normal level of volume to speak. It becomes a problem when people are practically yelling on the phone and can be heard three rows down the airplane. Most normal face to face conversations on an airplane are barely audible b/c of the background noise on the plane.