Qantas Blames Wireless For Aircraft Incidents 773
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."
Moral of the story? (Score:1, Insightful)
Fly Boeing instead of Airbus.
If Airbus is that susceptible to electronic interference, then I'd rather not fly in their planes. The last thing I need is to plunge into the Atlantic because some disgruntled-fellow-gone-terrorist on the ground is jamming the flight controls with a generator and a pringles can.
WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
If an airplane can have its control mechanisms interfered with by a simple wireless device then what the hell are they thinking?
Shield that crap.
If it is that delicate then don't use it - there are surely alternatives and surely my life should not depend on something so likely trivial.
It could be said that, "Yeah, they cause problems and in the interest of safety we're going to ban them." Bullshit. That treats the symptom and is not a cure.
Dear editors... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wireless? (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea that a standard wireless device can cause a multi-million dollar jet for a loop says a whole lot about the design of these systems on-board. Why is it that my laptop doesn't go flying off my desk when I shift-right click is beyond me.
In all honesty, can someone please explain how this could even remotely be true? Aren't these planes flying around at all altitudes with a multitude of radio wave radiation from an untold number of sources, both human and naturally occurring?
are they fly by wire?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Pilot error? (Score:1, Insightful)
Did anyone RTFA? First the plane went up 300 feet, then nosedived. Have they considered that the pilot noticed the 300 foot change and overreacted? He may have pushed the stick just a little too quickly.
Or maybe he was texting just before the incident.
Re:Moral of the story? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wireless? (Score:5, Insightful)
In all honesty, can someone please explain how this could even remotely be true? Aren't these planes flying around at all altitudes with a multitude of radio wave radiation from an untold number of sources, both human and naturally occurring?
Design flaw. Not saying that's how it is, but it doesn't seem impossible that this plane was poorly designed.
A more likely possibility: the plane failed randomly, and scapegoating something was a more attractive alternative than saying "we have no idea why our plane failed, it could be anything really, maybe they all will fall."
Re:Channel Reuse & Interference (Score:5, Insightful)
No. This has nothing to do with "I want to use my laptop/DS/phone, so make me happy as the paying customer", and everything to do with "if an unauthorized wireless mouse can bring down a plane, we need the entire fleet of such badly defective planes grounded and fixed yesterday".
Seriously. Any system that can't deal with weak RF interference needs to hit the scrapheap. In any other industry, we'd see the customers suing - Imagine if Ford said using a bluetooth headset in their vehicles violates your warranty... They'd go bankrupt overnight. Only the fact that the aviation industry has slowly boiled the frog, making us expect horrible customer service at unpredictable (but high) prices, allows any of the BS we've put up with for the past 20 years (and the shout-and-taze squads aside, the airlines had problems long before 9/11).
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if you're right(I don't know shit about this stuff), the issue then becomes the software.
If the plane descended so abruptly that it caused 70 injuries, then the software is to blame for not limiting ascent and descent in a more controlled manner.
When a human pilot sees they're at 30k feet and wants to be at 12k feet, they do not plunge the plane into a nose dive.
Re:Moral of the story? (Score:5, Insightful)
The folks at Airbus are just dodging blame
Airbus said nothing, it's the airline who is trying to dodge blame here.
Kidding me right? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like a classic case of FUD to mask the real issue. Along with making sure that people stay scared about using electronic devices in plains.
I hate to break it to the aviation industry but we are pushing along in the 21st century these days. They are going to have to design and fly planes with people using electronic devices. There is no reason why a modern aircraft should not be able to accommodate that within reasonable limits.
Post hoc ergo prompter hoc (Score:5, Insightful)
This seems like a rather dangerous way to go about finding the real cause. They are assuming the cause, and now looking for proof. They have confirmation bias oozing from every pore.
Re:Wireless? (Score:3, Insightful)
More to the point why don't other aircraft interfere with each other either on the ground or in the air when they often fly/taxi fairly close to each other?
If a wireless mouse just happens to be on the same frequency as a plane what hope is there when other planes are almost certainly bound to be on the same frequency as each other for internal electronic?
The article sounds like FUD, I simply cannot believe modern aircraft are that prone to interference else I believe we'd have seen far far more incidents than this.
Re:Moral of the story? (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, why are there two links in TFS, when the 2 are exactly the same link?
Re:Moral of the story? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like bullshit to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
How the hell can a *wireless mouse* affect the elevator controls of an aircraft? Are they somehow about a trillion times more susceptible to interference than the electronics in cars? Let's think logically about this for a fucking minute...
You can use a mobile phone in a car, which has damn near every function controlled by some sort of electronics (well, if it was built within the last ten years). Despite this, cars don't routinely have all sorts of weirdass control failures caused by people talking on mobile phones, which may be using an output power of up to a few hundred milliwatts. They are *sometimes* affected by massive sources of very very loud RF, like military RADAR systems - there's a spot of German autobahn known for cars having mysterious electrical failures which clear up when the car is towed a kilometer down the road. No surprises here, there's a big RADAR installation *right by the road*.
"But it's a wireless mouse, using bluetooth!" - okay, so that means it's on 2.4GHz. Fire up your laptop in the car. Weird electrical problems? Nope. Nothing. Right there you're using about 50mW of 2.4GHz RF, maybe up to 100mW depending on the card and local telecoms regulations. Get your bluetooth mouse out. Anything? Probably not - since they transmit in the order of a handful of *microwatts* of RF.
Okay, let's look at the plane - I wonder if it's got any sort of digital radio transmitter on it? Oh, look, a transponder, and that puts out somewhere between 100W and 500W depending on the type. Ah yes, and an ACARS transmitter with at least 5W, possibly as much as 25W, again depending on the type...
So, what are you saying here? Do you seriously expect me to believe that a wireless mouse operating in the microwatt range can affect the avionics of an aircraft, but *somehow* the aircraft's own very high power radio transmitters don't? There's probably more stray RF at 2.4GHz from the galley microwave.
Saying that it was caused by a wireless mouse is unquestionably bollocks.
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
A 747 certainly can push over fast enough to get negative gees in the cabin. It has nothing to do with a nose-dive and everything to do with how fast the plane's attitude changes. All you'd have to do is go negative enough to lift people in the air, then back to positive and they'll fall down.
Re:Moral of the story? (Score:1, Insightful)
Light does not penetrate solid objects!
Tell that to my windshield, genius.
Re:Moral of the story? (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't be so sure. Boeing uses analogs, and hydraulics controlled by the motive force of the pilot that is in turn, connected to the 'autopilot'. Airbus uses system whereby controls are 100% translated to their operational functions. Should a lot of EMI confuse their computers, although it's admittedly unlikely, an Airbus could conceviably do strange things.
Yes, sheilding should be adequate to diffuse the problem, but transconductance and skin effect, along with misbehavior of poorly designed consumer electronics could make a wicked aeronautical stew.
mouse [...] was blamed? (Score:3, Insightful)
What I herd was:
Obviously they need to hire a few real engineers rather than just clueless mouth piece. Think about it this way;: The guys laptop, sitting less than a foot away (remember that r^2 EMI power density?), is much better shielded than the multi-million dollar air plane having countless human lives hanging in the balance on a daily basis? Darn, Where is my clue stick hiding these days...
Re:Moral of the story? (Score:5, Insightful)
Trying to shift blame when the blame belongs somewhere else is one thing. Trying to shift blame onto the company who supplies you with your airplanes using a moronic excuse is just bad business. You're saying you're moronic enough to buy a plane that can be crashed with a mouse, and that your supplier was moronic enough to build a plane that can be crashed with a mouse. Nothing good is going to come out of this.
Re:Moral of the story? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or...........
you could keep your seatbelt fastened while sitting in your seat, like they REPEATEDLY tell you to do.
Re:Channel Reuse & Interference (Score:3, Insightful)
If something is outputting noise at a frequency where a system needs to receive transmissions, all you can do is hope the noise doesn't drown out the transmission and that the error correction can cope.
Re:Wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Moral of the story? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yup.
http://www.wifitrends.org/entry/boeing-and-airbus-providing-airline-wi-fi-access/ [wifitrends.org]
Especially when Airbus is asking people to use WiFi on their planes.
Makes no sense, does it?
Re:Moral of the story? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Moral of the story? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Moral of the story? (Score:2, Insightful)
There. Fixed that for you.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Proof? (Score:3, Insightful)
Thanks again to the slashdot editors for the excellent headline and summary... where's my
Re:Moral of the story? (Score:5, Insightful)
My comment was unfairly marked troll. I stand by what I said. Blaming an optical mouse (whoever it may be, Airbus or Qantas) is just sheer stupidity. No way is an optical gadget going to "cause interference" with shielded electrical wiring or devices.
As for things like radios, when I worked for an airplane supplier we used devices that were resistant, not just to radio, but radioactive events. After all, airplanes don't have a lot of atmosphere to protect them - they get some bombardment from cosmic sources (mostly the sun) which can cause flipped bits. The hardware has to be able to handle these events without failure.
Re:Moral of the story? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to long after 9/11, I was on a Qantas flight that passed out plastic silverware during dinner...except for those of us that ordered the steak, we got steel steak knives with our meal. You could hear people laughing all the way down the plane as the cart rolled down the aisle passing out knives.
Re:Moral of the story? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, ACARS traffic typically doesn't cause issues. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the flight crew can be receiving updated WX and MGL numbers at the gate and on the taxiway, but that info is not something which would typically cause any flight delay, and it certainly isn't something automagically handled by the avionics onboard.
Background: I spent over a decade working on the Weather and MGL/Gross Weights ground systems at a major red-tailed US airline which handled most of the ACARS traffic to/from that airline's aircraft. Some of the stuff I dealt with included weather reporting and alerting (SA/METAR, FT/TAF, TWIP/Microburst Alerts, Turbulence Plot messages, NOTAMS, etc.), aircraft fuel on board (FOB) validation, takeoff and landing performance data including the optimal flap and thrust settings used for reduced thrust (FLEX) takeoffs, etc.
The ACARS terminals we used had a small text screen roughly 16 lines x 22 columns in size (the specific ACARS terminals and screen sizes tended to vary some by aircraft type), and the pilots were able to interactively request all of the above information in the event that an automatically generated message or alert was not received. They could also send and received freetext messages, and of course they also might have radio contact with their assigned flight dispatcher.
All of the operationally-related ACARS information was received and interpreted by the flight crew, and were not automagically handled by avionics. In addition, the same messages were cross-checked by both the flight crew and the flight dispatcher assigned to that flight (who received a copy in real-time of the same messages sent to the a/c via ACARS), and any issues with the data were dealt with well before the a/c started its takeoff roll. They mgiht be requesting WX and/or MGL updates while taxiing, but you can believe that they already have fairly accurate information well before that point.
ACARS messages provide additional information and advice to the flight crew, but the flight crew is ultimately responsible for doing some basic sanity checking on the numbers provided, and any changes to the a/c's takeoff or landing procedures are initiated by the flight crew, not by some automatic system.
Some automated ACARS traffic is processed, but those things are limited to things like automated Fuel reports on some aircraft (e.g., A320/A330), and various engine performance reports that can be interactively obtained by the performance engineering folks while the a/c is still in flight (they can request an engine status report enroute via ACARS, which then gets send to them via ACARS, and proactively notify the folks at the destination airport that some form of adjustment is required on landing).
Other airlines may vary. Also, my information may be somewhat out of date as I failed Axe Dodging 101 just after 9/11 and haven't worked in the flight operations area since leaving the airline. I still work on airline software, just not in flight ops. :-)
Hope this helps...
Re:Enforced politeness or what! (Score:4, Insightful)
Didn't Mythbusters totally debunk this? (Score:2, Insightful)
I remember the episode. Their experts said that only older small planes were susceptible to electronic interference. Modern passenger jets should not even remotely be so.
If they were, wouldn't the tons of electronic noise around the airports cause far more problems than a low powered device in the plane?
Re:Moral of the story? (Score:4, Insightful)
"The cause of this buzzing has to do with GSMâ(TM)s time division nature. The ever-knowledgeable Keith Nowak, spokesperson for Nokia, explains it as follows: [[With GSM]] the RF transmitter is turned on/off at a fast rate, and that pulsing is often picked up by nearby devices that donâ(TM)t have good RF shielding. In the case of GSM the pulse rate is 217 Hz, which can be easily heard.
from link 1 [iphonematters.com]
not to mention: link 2 [slashdot.org]
Re:Moral of the story? (Score:2, Insightful)
Next you'll be saying there's a meaningful difference between loyalty and fear.
Re:Mythbusters anyone? (Score:1, Insightful)
Doing this in a Cessna doesn't 'prove' anything as there are very few, if any, electronic instruments in the vast majority of Cessnas - the instruments are driven by gyros, suction, and air pressure differences.
Re:Moral of the story? (Score:3, Insightful)
At least your use of the word 'prey' seems close to appropriate in context, as oppsed to everyone elses. It's 'pray' when you are talking to $deity.