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A mysterious voice is haunting American Airlines’ in-flight announcements

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Re: A mysterious voice is haunting American Airlines’ in-flight announcements

#91

Post by thaumasiotes »

iudqnolq wrote: post #87
culi wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then the master power button up at 1L for the cabin power kept getting I pushed so it would shut off all the IFE I can't even get passed the first sentence of this. What does any of this mean?

Uninformed guess: "The master [public address system] power button [located] up by [seat] 1L kept getting pushed so it would shut off all the IFE [(inflight entertainment)]" This makes sense, because for safety reasons all the entertainment is paused when they use the public address system.

> for safety reasons all the entertainment is paused when they use the public address system.

It's more common for the entertainment to be muted without being paused. I assume that's as a convenience to the passengers.

Re: A mysterious voice is haunting American Airlines’ in-flight announcements

#92

Post by TheBlight »

bb88 wrote: post #42
rx_tx wrote: post #6

For those interested in the various aircraft systems for PA (public address) and aircraft status system for aircrew, I found this interesting training doc PDF online [1] for the A320/321. I have been looking at section "03-010 CABIN INTERCOMMUNICATION DATA SYSTEM" It does not mention the "medical intercom jacks" in overhead bins that are mentioned at the end of the article [1]: https://caisatech.net/uploads/XXI_3_AIR…

Apparently there is a compact flash card to play music and the pre-recorded announcement over the loud speakers. I wonder if someone replaced the standard announcement with a 5 hour long file with intermittent burps and groans....

They would probably notice that but it does seem like some former passenger most likely installed something that's patched into the system. It may just be a recording from a flash drive. Or it could also be more sophisticated and patch into the wifi as well. You could also imagine it having a microphone for added hijinx but none of the interactions seem to suggest that.

Re: A mysterious voice is haunting American Airlines’ in-flight announcements

#94

Post by echelon »

mhh__ wrote: post #83
trasz wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TikTok is famous for adjusting the content to the user, so if it’s showing you dumb shit, then, well…

It tries to show me people talking about maths and finance and programming but they're all either infantilising themselves for some reason or not very good at it. And anyway I have a fair amount of karma here so what does that say about hackernews if your implication is correct...

> I have a fair amount of karma here so what does that say about hackernews

That you (in)frequently post spicy hot takes.

Re: A mysterious voice is haunting American Airlines’ in-flight announcements

#96

Post by iudqnolq »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #91
iudqnolq wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uninformed guess: "The master [public address system] power button [located] up by [seat] 1L kept getting pushed so it would shut off all the IFE [(inflight entertainment)]" This makes sense, because for safety reasons all the entertainment is paused when they use the public address system.

> for safety reasons all the entertainment is paused when they use the public address system. It's more common for the entertainment to be muted without being paused. I assume that's as a convenience to the passengers.

You're right, I forgot because I have just used my phone the last few years. Now I remember I always found it incredibly annoying because I'd miss part of the dialogue of what I was watching.

Re: A mysterious voice is haunting American Airlines’ in-flight announcements

#99

Post by Waterluvian »

iudqnolq wrote: post #89
chx wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because being caught tampering with any commercial airline systems could mean significantly jail time. not sure. A cursory reading of https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/32 doesn't mesh with a silly prank. Which law do you think they are breaking?

"Whoever ... causes to be made unworkable or unusable ... any part ... used in connection with the operation of such aircraft, if such placing ... is likely to endanger the safety of any such aircraft" The "part" is the PA system. While the device is playing the prank sound, it is temporarily "made unworkable" for its intended purpose of allowing the crew to communicate with the passangers. This "endangers the safety…

I don’t deny that it’s an important safety system. I’m curious, though, if they’re treated like safety critical systems in design or if emergency training covers how to act if the PA is down.

I’ve got to believe it’s safety critical.

Re: A mysterious voice is haunting American Airlines’ in-flight announcements

#100

Post by Nextgrid »

BbzzbB wrote: post #82
chx wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because being caught tampering with any commercial airline systems could mean significantly jail time. not sure. A cursory reading of https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/32 doesn't mesh with a silly prank. Which law do you think they are breaking?

I doubt courts would interpret "hacked into an airplane's communication system" as a silly prank, but I ANAL.

Plugging in a Bluetooth transmitter into a user-accessible port and using the system as intended is "hacking" now?

Sure, passengers weren't intended to use that port, but from a system perspective the system is being used as intended with no interference or exploitation.

I'm not sure this system can even be "hacked" short of disassembling parts of the plane and tapping into the communications wiring.

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