Qantas Blames Wireless For Aircraft Incidents

Status
Not open for further replies.

blantonl

Founder and CEO
Staff member
Super Moderator
Joined
Dec 9, 2000
Messages
11,097
Location
San Antonio, Whitefish, New Orleans
A great article on Slashdot:

http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/09/1427232

"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."
 

shaft

Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2004
Messages
418
Location
Wentzville, Mo
When all else fails to explain an issue, blame the very low power wireless device. Seems logical, eh?
 
N

N_Jay

Guest
A great article on Slashdot:

http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/09/1427232

"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."

Many wirelss mouses (mice, whatever) are 27 MHz.
 

bigbluemsp

Member
Joined
Nov 26, 2004
Messages
1,692
Location
Michigan
Airbus A330-300 have been plagued with problems since they came out on the open market. Airbus refuses to admit it muchless try to trouble shoot it.

Quantas has the cleanest safety record of any major airline in the world and also has had the fewest crashes or of any major airline in it's history.

When they went with Airbus A330's they have had more then their fair share of problems...



I do a lot of research on airlines and companies and their historys when I get bored. I gots no life :D lol
 

ButchGone

Member
Joined
Jan 9, 2004
Messages
834
Location
Ringgold, Georgia
oooh...

"Many wirelss mouses (mice, whatever) are 27 MHz."

Does that mean they can get all them truckers riled up, clicking that sucker in a car? breaker-breaker-one-nine!
or, when the hf bands open up will the skip send mouse clicks to europe?

BG..
 
N

N_Jay

Guest
"Many wirelss mouses (mice, whatever) are 27 MHz."

Does that mean they can get all them truckers riled up, clicking that sucker in a car? breaker-breaker-one-nine!
or, when the hf bands open up will the skip send mouse clicks to europe?

BG..

No, I mean the third harmonic is in the Aviation NAV band.
 

SsamohT1966

Member
Joined
Feb 25, 2008
Messages
1
Earths atmosphere is bombarded by radio and micro waves everyday, all day, so that sounds like a crock to me.
 

unitcharlie

a Kentucky DB Admin...
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Jan 2, 2003
Messages
2,853
Location
on the road to Nonesuch, Ky...
Earths atmosphere is bombarded by radio and micro waves everyday, all day, so that sounds like a crock to me.
I agree... first problem is the afflicted aircraft is an Airbus(T).... Somehow I can't see even a-thousand wireless mice all making a move at the same time on the same freq causing trouble unless there is woefully inadequate shielding on that cabling.....
 

pawsrock

Member
Joined
Jun 26, 2005
Messages
235
Location
Jacksonville Fl.
So every time something goes wrong they will blame joe public. This plane is so new and so big it would not surprise me to know that Airbus may have problems that it is not saying. I read the link and then read some of the post below it, and I believe they have a bad software problem. With so much electronics aboard these aircraft now, these airplanes do everything but fly them selves
Ron Fone
 

unitcharlie

a Kentucky DB Admin...
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Jan 2, 2003
Messages
2,853
Location
on the road to Nonesuch, Ky...
Catastrophic Innovation at Airbus
20 Nov 06

What Happened?
The major cause of the production delay lies in problems with the wiring harnesses that represent the electronic circulatory system of the aircraft. Many of these complex bundles are made in Hamburg, Germany and shipped to Toulouse, France for assembly. When installed, they don’t work.

pawsrock you have hit the nail squarely upon the head....
 

kb2vxa

Completely Banned for the Greater Good
Banned
Joined
Mar 22, 2005
Messages
6,100
Location
Point Pleasant Beach, N.J.
That's only half of the nail. Modern aircraft no longer employ hydraulics to operate the control surfaces but computer "fly by wire" technology hinted at by unitcharlie. Now consider this, while the computer "LAN" and RF communications systems are considered in the overall design of the aircraft and do not interfere with each other what about RF from unexpected sources not considered? Just a little food for thought (and the expected continued speculation).

No longer do terrorists need to break into the cockpit to hijack an aircraft, now they can do it from the comfort of their seats. Like that scene from Independence Day appearing on the screen is THIS AIRCRAFT HAS BEEN HACKED...TOULOUSE! (;->)
 
Last edited:

guitarbrian30

Member
Joined
Feb 13, 2007
Messages
182
Location
Bismarck ,ND
mice the cause

how come they do not use shielded cables?

how come they do not use any isolation devices or conditioners?

Surely they are building these planes in a factory that contains wireless mice.

Nothing is adding up about what they are saying.

Brian
 

Audiodave1

Member
Database Admin
Joined
Dec 27, 2001
Messages
1,853
Location
Chadds Ford, PA
As someone who flies alot I really have no faith in the report that a wireless device caused this problem.

On any given flight there are many phones or other RF leaking devices that are left on. I-Den phones burping out 2.5w pulses (and GSM slightly less) would seem to be a bigger worry than nano-watt wireless mice.

It's just a BS statement to try to save face for the airline.

Qantas has had a rash of major incidents in the past 6 months likely related to maintenance (or lack of) on it's fleet. The most notable being the exploding oxygen tank mid flight that ripped a hole in the side of a 744.

This is just the latest in a string of incidents for an airline that once had a spotless record.

Just wait until their engineering / maint. staff strikes again and the sub-contractors have at the planes again.

Just my take on things.....

Dave
 

poltergeisty

Truth is a force of nature
Banned
Joined
May 7, 2004
Messages
4,012
Location
RLG, Fly heading 053, intercept 315 DVV
An airbus losing altitude??? They have built in redundancies! :lol: *Sarcastic*

What are the chances of a sudden drop of pressure so great to cause the plane to change altitude?

A redundant secondary feature could be used for altitude using GPS. One day
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top