Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

waxy.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 301 posts

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

#221

Post by smelendez »

bemmu wrote: post #180
bb88 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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....

If there is such a flash card, this sounds like the easiest explanation. Someone swapped the card with a file that starts with the real announcement, then X minutes of silence, followed by joke sounds.

Absolutely did this in middle school music class, where there was a cassette player that usually went unused. I don’t remember the details but it was basically 10 minutes of silence and then some raunchy audio, probably NIN or Marilyn Manson (it was 1998 and we were 12).

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

#222

Post by pxmpxm »

babelfish wrote: post #27
upwardbound wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably they would unplug the dongle at the end of the flight while they retrieve their overhead luggage

Assuming it’s one person with the dongle responsible for all 3-4 instances of this - it would be pretty easy for AA to figure out who’s doing it if this is the case, just check if there’s a common passenger on every flight where the issue was reported

Really good point there - the overlap of multiple people on all those flights would be very unlikely.

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

#223

Post by nightpool »

6stringmerc wrote: post #210
panarky wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've flown American six times in the last ten days, and four of the flights had chaos with the entertainment system. No groans or heavy breathing on the PA, but flight attendants had to "reboot the system" once or twice every flight.

They might be doing that out of caution just to keep it from being exploited. Sounds like something management or the Flight Crew might decide is a band aid if one tries it and it works then everybody starts doing it. Knee jerk reaction but sounds like they’re stumped.

That's true, but there's also reports from flight attendants of it happening spontaneously before the issue was known about: https://twitter.com/xJonNYC/status/1572358118985633795

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

#224

Post by maxbond »

judge2020 wrote: post #148
LouisSayers wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if this was the case - kind of like an internet flash mob all in on the joke, waiting for reputable news sources to pick it up and show their lack of journalistic integrity.

> show their lack of journalistic integrity. I mean, the only thing I could see them doing is asking the flight attendants or AA, but both of those are likely hard to get an actual answers for (AA would most likely say 'we are investigating' and would never follow-up). If something is on social media and there are enough corroborating accounts, it's probably enough to write a news article about.

The article says AA said it was an issue with an amplifier, but goes on to doubt that explanation.

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

#226

Post by nightpool »

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.

I think "master power button" probably more clearly means some sort of master control switch for in-seat passenger accessory power, since it's described as shutting off all in-flight entertainment AND seat power. The sort of thing you're supposed to press during takeoff and landing, not during announcements

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

#227

Post by Kaibeezy »

pjerem wrote: post #191
tzs wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person doing it might not be on the affected flights. Instead they plant something on the plane during a different flight (or between flights if they are an insider who can get access to the plane between flights) that is hooked into the PA system and has a recording that it plays after a time delay or perhaps when the cabin pressure lowers or perhaps both (e.g., delay 48 hours than start when the cabin pressure…

If there is a device, they should have found it now.

If there’s a device and they haven’t found it by now, should anyone be getting on airplanes?

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

#229

Post by jrootabega »

Unsatisfying, Hanlon-style prediction: no one involved had any notable malice or competence.

Maintenance and cleaning crews love to listen to radio/music on speakers while working. Someone from this staff plugged in a receiver to listen while servicing the plane, and forgot it. Or they left it there for convenience and didn't think anyone would notice. Someone else unrelated, while on the flight, found this receiver on their phone/laptop, and played these sounds, possibly unwittingly.

AA may have found these devices after the incidents and just not reported it. Or they didn't take the reports seriously enough to comb the plane for problems. Or they gave up and would rather not lose the money by grounding the plane and tearing it down. (I don't have any aviation expertise, so I don't know exactly how disruptive it would be for them to to do this.)

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

#230

Post by consumer451 »

nightpool wrote: post #223
6stringmerc wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might be doing that out of caution just to keep it from being exploited. Sounds like something management or the Flight Crew might decide is a band aid if one tries it and it works then everybody starts doing it. Knee jerk reaction but sounds like they’re stumped.

That's true, but there's also reports from flight attendants of it happening spontaneously before the issue was known about: https://twitter.com/xJonNYC/status/1572358118985633795

Deeper link to video of it happening:

https://twitter.com/actuallyemerson/status/15731071172546396...

Post reply on HN