Those pesky cell phone calls from the 4 stricken aircraft...

I posted this once before but it got deleted by someone...so we'll try again:

I am looking for help on understanding how cell phone calls from the passenger cabins in flight might be different from cell phone calls made ground-to-ground. I have never owned a cell phone (and never will) and do not fly very often, so my questions are these:

1. Are there airline restrictions as to when these calls can be made?
2. Were those retrictions altered after 911?
3. Do you need a credit card to make these calls? Would they have needed a card back then also?
4. Do you get through to the ground as easily (first time connection) as you do ground-to-ground?
5. Is the quality of such a call any different than a ground-to-ground cell phone call?
6. Does the airplane's avionics ever interfere with the call in any way?
7. Have you ever personally made such a call? If so, please tell us about that experience....

I have always wondered why--with the extremely high terrorist/passenger ratios on those four flights-- the terrorists were so distracted as to allow this many people to be making cell phone calls. Seems very suspicious to me. It's almost like someone wanted those calls on the record for a VERY IMPORTANT REASON...

Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to provide me with on this topic, I really appreciate it, even if you may disagree with my eventual conclusions about these calls.

[Edited on 16-4-2004 by mepatriot]

It wasn't deleted, it was relocated to chit chat.

www.belowtopsecret.com...

[Edited on 16-4-2004 by ADVISOR]

What's chit-chat?? Who decided to move it, and on what grounds?? TIA.

You will have to take that up with the "SKEPTICOVERLORD" and if that's not good enough...well then your screwed.

What is a "SKEPTICOVERLORD" and why would I be "screwed?"

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[Edited on 16-4-2004 by ADVISOR]

Originally posted by ADVISOR
It wasn't deleted, it was relocated to chit chat.

www.belowtopsecret.com...

[Edited on 16-4-2004 by ADVISOR]

I have even went into the chit chat thread and linked the other threads that were started on the same subject.

Here is all the information that has been posted on this topic previously. Can we now re-assess this situation and any new infromation we may have available at this later point in time re: cell phone calls from aircraft in flight?

TIA

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posted on 21-8-2003 at 06:28 AM quote

9-11 and cell phones

I confess it is somewhat reactionary and backward-looking to post anything concerning conspiracy on the new ATS (let alone anything demanding any exercise of the memory) but the last stage of the Achilles project -Prof Dewdney who has consistently attacked the nonsense about cell-phone/seat-phone calls from Flights 77 and 93- is now very easily accessible ( it's been around for 3 months).
It's at www.physics911.org...
To those who recall the long-ago farce of Barbara Olson and the passengers' uprising etc...blah...yawn, this is of interest -and remember: it is an experiment and judge it as such.
This was but one of the many obvious and quickly forgotten lies, of course; but it's the one that can be tested (we can't rebuild WTC or rerun the day to find out how GWB actually did know, or how the white vans and art students were so quickly forgotten.)
Dewdney isn't particularly biased (in fact taking the position that anything said by the White House or Pentagon is almost certainly a lie can scarcely be called "bias", more like common sense). His case is clear and "testable"
It's odd that more people didn't instantly recall the farce about TWA 800 immediately, at the time.

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posted on 21-8-2003 at 06:35 AM quote

quote:
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Originally posted by Estragon
I confess it is somewhat reactionary and backward-looking to post anything concerning conspiracy on the new ATS

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Estragon

Nice info, prefaced by an uncharacteristically brutal piece of cynicism.

Although I have to admit, the number of conspiracy deniers or conspiracy uninteresteds seems to outnumber the number of jigsaw and puzzle solvers by a ratio of about 5:1. Plenty have admitted they have no interest in conspiracies and don't believe they exist.

There is a real difference between 'alternative discussion' and 'conspiracy discussion'.

I for one make a point of reading all your posts on either in the few minutes a day I have spent at ATS.




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posted on 21-8-2003 at 06:42 AM quote

BTW, I had no difficulty believing that cellphones might have been used for last calls from loved ones. It's easy to swallow, given that switching off of cellphones is a safety measure required oin passenger aircraft... it makes one think that they might have been used widely otherwise.

I don't know the difference in modulation between cellphones and the built-in passenger phone systems on may airlines these days, but I presume they are totally unrelated technologies.

These parts of the study's conclusion are the most telling. They tell me that all along I should have been more doubtful, and included the existence of these calls in the 'potentially lies' category... but then I ask, why would any spouse or loved one be reporting that the calls happened, if they didn't?


(Conclusions)

As was shown above, the chance of a typical cellphone call from cruising altitude making it to ground and engaging a cellsite there is less than one in a hundred. To calculate the probability that two such calls will succeed involves elementary probability theory. The resultant probability is the product of the two probabilities, taken separately. In other words, the probability that two callers will succeed is less than one in ten thousand. In the case of a hundred such calls, even if a large majority fail, the chance of, say 13 calls getting through can only be described as infinitesimal. In operational terms, this means "impossible."

At lower altitudes the probability of connection changes from impossible to varying degrees of "unlikely." But here, a different phenomenon asserts itself, a phenomenon that cannot be tested in a propellor-driven light aircraft. At 500 miles per hour, a low-flying aircraft passes over each cell in a very short time. For example if a cell (area serviced by a given cellsite) were a mile in diameter, the aircraft would be in it for one to eight seconds. Before a cellphone call can go through, the device must complete an electronic "handshake" with the cellsite servicing the call. This handshake can hardly be completed in eight seconds. When the aircraft comes into the next cell, the call must be "handed off" to the new cellsite. This process also absorbs seconds of time. Together, the two requirements for a successful and continuous call would appear to absorb too much time for a speaking connection to be established. Sooner or later, the call is "dropped."


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posted on 21-8-2003 at 07:12 AM quote

Question:

Is it conceivable, that when referring to "cell phone" calls, it could have been aluding to the "seat phones" instead? Personally, if I was on a plane that was going down...I'd be making that call to loved ones... Maybe I skipped over it in briefly reading the link, I don't know....but it seems this could just be a case of semantics.....


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posted on 21-8-2003 at 08:04 AM quote

The seat-phone/credit-card swipe/collect-call business is addressed in the earlier sections (links there)
That some calls may have been faked is not impossible. The behaviour of Solicitor General Olson is in some ways the oddest - he immediately contacted a news agency, his story then disappeared' and remember -this was before the "uprising" on the Pennsylvania plane hit the media: it was the only bit of "Muslims did it" "proof" in the news on the following day

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posted on 21-8-2003 at 11:53 AM quote

Much of the reliability of cell phone depends on the altitude the call was made from. A few things need to be considered here. Cell phone towers in New York (for example) are mainly on top of tall buildings. The mechanism that communicates with the cell phone units themselves is pointed (untechnical way of speaking) downward because most users are lower down than the tall buildings. This is why people in high rise buildings have crappy service. I work on the 40th floor of a large building. My service is terrible, and I usually must push send 5-10 times until it goes through.
I therefore would question the ability of a standard cellular phone to work thousands of feet in the air (though i can not say for sure because I don't turn mine on in the plane). Normal cell phones would interfere with the electronic devices on the plane. Primarily during landing and takeoff but possibly other times as well. The swipe phones on the seats are a different story. The same way I can't listen to my discman or use my palm pilot during takeoff and landing, but the inflight entertainment system can run. That's an internal system designed specifically to work on an airplane. So yes, I do believe the swipe phones would have worked at great speeds and altitudes because the nature of the system is very different from the system MA described. Judging from what I know i consider it impossible for numerous Normal Cell phone calls to go through from the plane.

By the way... Not every plane has the swipe phones. Has anyone checked into whether or not the model of plane in question had them? If it didn't and the only way to get through was standard cell phones, I would venture to say this did not occur the way we have been led to believe.

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posted on 21-8-2003 at 05:02 PM quote

I have never owned or used a cellphone, so Ill take this guys word for it. I know you can use the seat phones on a plane, as i have done that before just for the hell of it. Some reports stated specifically the calls were made from "cell phones", so i think some calls were legit, some calls were faked.

I do know, however, that I have yet to see anyone talking on a cellphone on a plane. They tell you to turn them off for take off and landing, but even after that, Ive not seen anyone chatting on one. Ive seen people play on thier laptop comps, or listen to music and stuff.

Pretty damn interesting. I know that one ofg the passengers on flight 93 made a call to a 9-11 disoatcher they said, from a bathroom, so that would mean a cellphone. dunno how high in the air they were. anyway, the reason i question this paticular phone call, is because after he made the phone call, the the FBI found out, they confiscated the recording of the call and told the dispatchers to keep quiet.

So, does this mean, either they were traveling low enough to call, or he wasnt in the bathroom, or, the call didnt take place. then...what did the FBI seize from the dispatcher, and why the silence?


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posted on 21-8-2003 at 08:54 PM quote

This article appears to state differently

www.panix.com...


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posted on 21-8-2003 at 09:13 PM quote

The seat-phone lies were, and are, very mysterious: after CNN ran it all reference to it disappeared and the only easily "findable" mention is an interview in a London paper (very handy for Olson as it's published outside US sovereign territory)
The Perjurer General asserted that his wife used the seat-phone but claimed she tried to reverse the charges (call collect) and he asserted that she did not ahve a credit card on her (that's likely??)
One's understanding is that the AL seat phones onbly "go out" if a credit card is swiped through them to deduct an immediate "set up charge": so she had to have a credit card, presumably.
She borrowed one? Then why call collect? And is this even possible?
Set aside whether the phone would have worked or whether, given the speed and movement and high-G turns of the aeroplane anyone could have actually used it (the "Arabs" were where at the time?).
Above all, recall that this was the first mention of the "hijacker" claims -it was not until 4 days later that the Todd Beamer fantasies emerged.
The whole edifice of claims about 9-11 was built upon this.

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posted on 21-8-2003 at 09:18 PM quote

I thought Cell phone signals were relayed from the service providers satellite.


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posted on 21-8-2003 at 10:40 PM quote

quote:
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When you turn on your cellular phone on the ground, it will search for and engage one or two local antennae in a limited area. When you turn on your cellular phone while airborne, it can find and engage hundreds of antennae over hundreds of miles, as it doesn't have to navigate the curvature of the planet.

This causes antennae to become overloaded, and chokes off ground-borne cellular connections.

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www.wirelessweek.com...

The prior article was very clear passengers on private Jets use there cell phones all the time.


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posted on 21-8-2003 at 11:09 PM quote

Good finds, Toltec

There is clearly information and disinformation in the works.

I still can't decide whether size of plane and size of windows are important variables at all.


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posted on 22-8-2003 at 02:01 AM quote

There is indeed this lack of clarity on cell-phones and it's hard to find two articles that are dealing with quite the same conditions.
That was the continuing appeal for me of Dewdney's Achilles project: it is in a very robust sense experimental: he started from the results not from assuming a correct hypothesis.
Now, he is a reaf prof: this can be verified and to me the whole project is "scientific" in its methodology. I have seen no clashes between his assumptions and what has been "officially" released with regard to altitude, speed and course of the aircraft in question.

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posted on 22-8-2003 at 08:30 AM quote

As someone who flies often....

I can say that yes, the seat phones work fine in turbulence, turns, etc. (I always call my fiance' to let her know if I'm getting in early, etc.) Also, I've seen people sneak similarly quick cell calls, and they seemed to have no problems.... BTW-It's always business trips, so I expense the call, hehe...


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posted on 22-8-2003 at 12:37 PM quote

But = if all else is equal - can they "call collect"?

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