I know the Chicken Littles in the security industry are in a frenzy, but this is fucking stupid. Mid-flight, and a cell phone rings, and you decide to turn around, half way to New York? You fucking pussies.
The way I see it, you’re already half way to New York. If you feel there’s a security threat due to a ringing cell phone, it’s going to take you the same amount of time to return to London. Why not just keep going to New York?
If you’re all so worried, why not install a bomb proof box in every airliner, that way, when you find a ringing cell phone, you lock it in the box. Then everyone will be safe from ringing cell phones. You can never be too careful. :rolleyes:
My guess is, is that the phone wasn’t even ringing. It was probably low on batteries. I didn’t think cell phones could obtain a signal in flight… Maybe somet type of satellite phone.
The little that’s been said about the current threat is that the plots involve assembling a bomb on-board, various components being carried on in disguise, as parts of electronic items, drinks, etc. Hence a strict ban on any electronic items in the cabin.
Note from the Fox link that the pilot didn’t do anything drastic, such as put out an emergency request for a military escort to the nearest airport. So it wasn’t treated as a huge threat.
What I read (UK Sunday Times, UK Sunday Independent) was that three liquids were to be carried on separately, combined, and detonated using part of an MP3 player/digital camera/cellphone.
It is also conceivable that a plot involving a flight from London to New York, not maturing an hour out of London, might well be targetting the Big Apple as well. In that case, turning back discreetly (and there’s no indication the pilot was foolish enough to announce over the P.A., in his best angry-father style, “All right then, if you guys can’t behave, I’ll just turn this plane around and go home!” might have been the best advice anyone who wanted nothing to explode could have given.
There’s also the fact that the crew tried and failed to isolate the cellphone and its owner. It’s hard to believe that the owner, if innocent, was cowardly enough to not own up to it (O.K., that part’s easy to believe) and lucky enough to not be identified by the person next to him/her. Heaven knows I’d rat the guy sitting next to me out, if only because there’s no likely consequence of doing so that’s worse than the possible consequences of keeping quiet. At least, I’d assume that I’d be in for a much more arduous flight and debarkation if the crew didn’t get the damn phone confiscated. I’d almost be ready to suggest that some random noise was misidentified as a cell phone ring just because several people would all have to have decided not to say “I heard it – it came from over there!” Which doesn’t seem likely.
At any rate, the technology of cellphones is such that it’s probable that, having searched for and acquired all the cell phones on the plane, it can be established which one rang at the crucial time. Then we’ll know. Or someone will, anyhow.
I wasn’t clear & should have provided a cite. I could have sworn there was an exhaustive Pit Thread on the subject, but my search came up empty. Long Story Short: Couric stops a plane that’s left the gate at a DC airport and was taxiing to the runway. She does this by running down the aisle, with an operating cellphone in hand, and demanding entrance to the cockpit. Evidently, the shuttle left w/o her Producer and she convinced the pilot to stop the plane and taxi back to the gate to pick him/her up.
Someone should have tackled the stupid cunt and slammed her into the floor. And the fact that the airplane’s crew actually acceded to her request is beyond belief.
This, combined with the fact that there weren’t supposed to be any phones at all on board, let alone ownerless, ringing phones, makes the action perfectly understandable.
I wonder if ParentalAdvisory has plans to fly into or out of London any time soon. I have to fly JFK to Heathrow tomorrow. I’m glad they are taking the threat seriously, whether or not ParentalAdvisory approves.
Ah, but see, what they don’t tell you is that the phone’s ring tone was a recording of a man with an Arabic accent yelling “Fly this plane to Washington DC or I’ll blow us all up!” They really should stop selling that one.
I don’t get it. Every plane flight for the last several years has been informed that cellphones must be switched off or they interfere with navigation. Wouldn’t it then make sense that an unclaimed cell phone would indeed be a hazard, not of terrorism but of technical failure?
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