Watching Flight 93 and am wondering if a cell phone can be used at a planes altitude?
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Hello There asked:
I have read numerous articles supporting and debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories, but in particular 2 ‘facts’ bother me-
a) Flight 11 wasn’t scheduled to fly on September 11th 2001
b) No cellphone would be able to receive clear reception (i.e film flight 93) at the flying altitude of the plane and make multiple phone calls.
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I have read numerous articles supporting and debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories, but in particular 2 ‘facts’ bother me-
a) Flight 11 wasn’t scheduled to fly on September 11th 2001
b) No cellphone would be able to receive clear reception (i.e film flight 93) at the flying altitude of the plane and make multiple phone calls.
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September 16th, 2008 at 12:38 am
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Airfone is a brand of air-ground radiotelephone service offered by Verizon. Airfone allows passengers to make telephone calls in-flight.
See the website:
They say “make telephone calls in-flight” that means at flight altitude.
TMD
September 16th, 2008 at 9:08 am
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Cell phones can get reception at altitude. In fact, they get too good reception, tying into multiple cell towers at once or jumping from on to another to another etc, which can overload the network. That is why it is illegal to use your cell phone while on the plane. Also, they say that a cell phone could possibly interfere with some of the systems on the plane but I have never hear of an incident of this happening.
September 18th, 2008 at 5:28 am
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Qantas has recently done a trial letting passengers use cell phones at altitude for sms and email. The trial was went well and they plan to let passengers to start using them (No voice calls allowed though) I am not sure if it will catch onto Amercia since America is security mad they will probably think people will be starting to detonate bombs in the sky.
September 19th, 2008 at 7:51 am
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When you talk about movement through the air, there are two movements you need to consider…
First, lateral movement. Just how fast was the plane going?
Second, angular momentum. Just how fast was the plane crossing the sky and how much angular change took place.?
Lateral movement. Lets assume the planes are low to the ground. Someone makes a call and connects. The same system that passes a call from tower to tower when a person is in a car, can do it for a call in a plane, even if that plane is going 500+ miles per hour, the electronics can handle it and the speed of light compared to 500 mph is infinite.
Angular momentum. Have you ever watched a jet fly across the sky? It may be at 30,000 feet (5 miles) and moving at 550 mph. But how fast is it moving across the sky? A few degrees per second.
The angular momentum is slow enough that someone in a plane can turn on their cell phone, get a signal from a tower on the ground and because the plane is within “visual” range of that tower for quite a while, communications can be done.
And when it gets out of range, the call gets passed to another tower.
Either way, phone calls from planes are possible.
The catch is that the radio frequency generated by the cell phones in close proximity to the avionics of the plane can cause navigation problems for the plane. With planes becoming more and more computer operated and “fly by wire” taking the risk of using a cell phone is pretty dumb.
Unless, of course, the plane has been hijacked.
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:16 am
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sometimes it can but sometimes nope
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:44 pm
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Most cell phones can get a signal below 10,000 ft. The calls involved during 9/11 were when the flights were at low altitude for a jetliner.
September 27th, 2008 at 1:23 am
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Dave’s answer sounds great to me. The only thought I’d add is to consider the distance a plane is from the ground. If you hike in some mountains and you are 20 miles from “civilization”, it’s possible to make a cell phone call.
Well, no commercial plane today flies much above 37,000 feet, which is only seven miles.
A cell phone can certainly reach a tower seven miles across land. From the top of a mountain, intuition (and experience) tells me that this would be even easier. A plane is a sealed tube, but the skin is fairly thin, so it’s basically like being in a cabin at the top of a very tall mountain.
It should work over built-up areas.
That said, I’m sure a flight over some remote regions might suddenly cut out, as you travel a mile in five seconds and can get out of range almost instantly.
September 27th, 2008 at 1:48 am
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a) It doesn’t matter if the flight was scheduled or not - it was still in the air.
b) Cell phones do get good reception and transmission in aircraft. That is why pilots ask that they be turned off during take-off and landing - so they don’t interfere with control tower transmissions.
September 28th, 2008 at 5:03 am
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You call those facts? Jeez.
October 1st, 2008 at 6:58 am
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Sorry but your questions are based on incorrect premises.
Flight 11 was a regularly scheduled flight.
Cellphones do work at that altitude. Only a few calls were placed something like 5-7 from a personal cellphone.
Most calls came from the installed Air Phone in the seatbacks.
October 2nd, 2008 at 7:59 pm
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The plane was flying at very low altitudes. Yes there is cell phone reception at 20,000 feet. The phones in 2001 were able to receive a reception even at altitudes at 40,000 feet. The only reason they tell you to not use your cell phone on a flight is becuase its signal could interfere with the aircrafts radios.
October 5th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
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OK people, if you don’t know anything about a subject, please don’t answer. Cell phones only work in jetliners if they are low to the ground, below about 8,000 feet. Just because you are up at 37,000 feet and within sight of 1000 cell towers, you will never get a signal. The metal of the plane will block the signal.
As for flight 11 being scheduled, there doesn’t seem to be any debate whether it slammed into the WTC.