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

241–250 of 301 posts

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

#241

Post by amelius »

stickfigure wrote: post #165
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…

A bit of searching for airplane medical communications jacks turned up this picture: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/12776/how-are-t... Jacking into that would not be inconspicuous.

Just put some beige box around it to make it look like it's part of the panel. The crew won't notice it.

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

#242

Post by LinuxBender »

iudqnolq wrote: post #200
Waterluvian wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd assume it's important to safety, but they have slightly less effective backups like yelling. I think the backup systems on aircraft are often things you'd rather not need to use.

I suppose that would be a good hack to get the pilots to unlock the cockpit door.

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

#243

Post by flutas »

oefrha wrote: post #181
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.

I once captured the Linux boot screen of a United Boeing 737 infotainment system. Apparently I still got that photo. OCRed text for lols: video capture buffer0 40b37460 video capture buffer1 40a8dd60 wideo_capture buffer2 409e4610 geode_: gamma black+csccorrection VAL2: Registered "NSC Geode V4LZ UBI driver" as char device B1, 224 VAL2: Registered "NSC Geode V4L2 Capture driver" as char device 81, geode_v: Unknown st…

> I once captured the Linux boot screen of a United Boeing 737 infotainment system.

I used to work adjacent to these exact systems...they're so bad.

Like, 10+ minute boot at times, or assigning multiple devices to the same IP, or the communication network just randomly dying... (and this was all in vitro testing)

It was still cool to see "the rack", aka an entire planes infotainment system setup on a rolling cart including however many seat backs each plane was supposed to have. They had multiple office buildings that were essentially full of these, because each airline and deployment was different enough that they didn't want to have to reconfigure when needing to test them.

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

#244

Post by docmars »

panarky wrote: post #168
TheBlight wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

I recently had some funny business on a United Airlines flight where the high-low chime (you hear for the seatbelt sign and landing gear, etc.) was going bonkers and chimed maybe 10 times in a row while the cabin lights faded on and off.

No announcements were made by the pilot or flight attendants afterwards, and everyone was left confused. I turned to the passenger next to me and we both shrugged.

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

#245

Post by docmars »

runjake wrote: post #170
exmadscientist wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of those people who thinks easter eggs are great, and miss the days when you had a decent chance of coming across one in a program or game. The FAA does not agree with that. The FAA probably thinks that easter eggs in avionics software are a crime. And I agree with that position! Aviation, medical, military, and any other critical software should not contain easter eggs, and it should be an offense to knowing…

There are Easter eggs in military avionics. The B-52H bomb/nav computers had a really rudimentary golf game. Think Atari 2600 quality. The B-2A had a breakout-like game at one time. Both were accessed via some really esoteric key presses.

They should have included Atari River Raid for bonus meta points!

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

#246

Post by balex »

duckqlz wrote: post #235

The sounds probably aren't a prank or a recording of a human at all. I am guessing it is just a resonant frequency of a standard part being picked up as a feedback loop due to some component which was recently exposed after a change in maintenance protocols. (or something similarly mundane) I have heard all sorts of ghoulish sounds picked up while tinkering with RF and old microchips. Our brains tend to anthropomorph…

I listened to the recording in the article, and it sounds like a human. Further, it sounds like the same human. And I found myself reading the emotional message behind the sounds. So...yeah, it's an interesting theory, but I think it's more likely a prank or someone making a point.

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

#247

Post by [deleted] »

duckqlz wrote: post #235

The sounds probably aren't a prank or a recording of a human at all. I am guessing it is just a resonant frequency of a standard part being picked up as a feedback loop due to some component which was recently exposed after a change in maintenance protocols. (or something similarly mundane) I have heard all sorts of ghoulish sounds picked up while tinkering with RF and old microchips. Our brains tend to anthropomorph…

[deleted]

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

#248

Post by O__________O »

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....

Looked at that too, but since unless I am missing something, that appears to be in the captain’s cabin based on linked document from the parent of this comment thread; which means it would not only be hard to access, but once placed, very likely be hard to recover and would have been checked too, likely even in flight while the audio continued to be heard.
Post reply on HN