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Qantas Blames Wireless For Aircraft Incidents
musther writes "An Australian airline Qantas Airbus A330-300, suffered 'a sudden change of altitude' on Tuesday. "The mid-air incident resulted in injuries to 74 people, with 51 of them treated by three hospitals in Perth for fractures, lacerations and suspected spinal injuries when the flight bound from Singapore to Perth had a dramatic drop in altitude that hurled passengers around the cabin." Now it seems Qantas is seeking to blame interference from passenger electronics, and it's not the first time; 'In July, a passenger clicking on a wireless mouse mid-flight was blamed for causing a Qantas jet to be thrown off course.' Is there any precedent for wireless electronics interfering with aircraft systems? Interfering with navigation instruments is one thing, but causing changes in the 'elevator control system' — I would be quite worried if I thought the aircraft could be flown with a bluetooth mouse."
Just to mention something I had read in a different article, possibly linked to from /.
According to that, wireless devices in fact DO NOT interfere with the airplane, or the control towers at all. The ban on wireless devices while in-flight, are FCC bans, not FAA bans. If I remember correctly, the bans were targeted more towards cellular phones to prevent phones from rapidly jumping from tower to tower while traveling 300+ mph overhead. Which the author concluded wreaked havoc on the communications grid.
Absolutely ridiculous. As if I could load up MS Flight Sim and override the pilots actions and fly the plane myself...
I call shenanigans!