Electromagnetic interference a growing problem in Aviation

Technocrat

Electromagnetic interference a growing problem in Aviation

Michael Smith

Thu Nov 13 16:36:00 -0800 2008

Electronics.

Last editor Alan

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News today about the ongoing investigation into the incident on 7 October 2008 when a Qantas A330-300 made two uncommanded changes in altitude. Fourteen people were seriously injured in the incident. A preliminary report by the Australian Air Transport Safety Bureau is looking into the possibility that a Navy communications transmitter at Exmouth in Western Australia could have interfered with systems on board the aircraft.

Investigators are also looking into the possibility that equipment operated by a passenger could have caused the problem.

Another article reports that an air data inertial reference unit generated spurious information throughout the flight and that the flight control system went into a degraded mode at the time of the incident as a result of this spurious input.

MS: About a year ago I was on a flight to Malaysia. The guy next to me started his phone when the crew secured for landing and was reading his new emails as we touched down. I suppose the rules don't apply to him.

Investigators currently speculate and build models to investigate the EMR affects on aircraft. I think it might be time to equip aircraft with recording devices specific for electromagnetic radiation. Until then there will be a lot of guesswork in this kind of investigation.

Electromagnetic interference a growing problem in Aviation

mcrbids

Thu Nov 13 22:46:15 -0800 2008
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And this is why I will never trust those commercial airliners - they are flying death traps, I tell yeh! Going all 400 miles per hour so high that you'd suffocate if you had to breath the air up there at 7-8 miles above sea level! How could this be considered "safe"? If even the slightest thing goes wrong, everybody aboard is a dead man!

So when I fly, I fly in a Cessna! The electrical system can be *turned* *off* while in flight with no effect on the engine or flight controls! I adjust the fuel mixture by hand! I'm only a few thousand feet above sea level! As the pilot, I'm directly in control of just about everything. Obviously, this is much safer, right?

Oops! Dead wrong, that is!

Commercial airlines have proven to be the safest means of common travel - something like 1/10th the death rate per mile of travel than a car, even when you include the deaths from 9/11. Small, single-engine planes, on the otherhand, fall somewhere between a car and a motorcycle in deaths per mile - not bad, but not particularly great, either.

Yes, they'll do their investigation, they'll try to identify WTF happened, but this doesn't change the fact that commercial aviation, with all its hassles, taking off your shoes, and standing in lines, is among the very safest and most efficient forms of travel. A commercial airline transports you at about 50 miles per gallon per passenger - not bad at over 300 knotts!

Electromagnetic interference a growing problem in Aviation

Michael Smith

Fri Nov 14 02:52:03 -0800 2008
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Don't get me wrong, I am not claiming that the sky is falling.

Comercial aviation is safe because some people do take a paranoid approach. As we clean up the old failure modes new ones will become more important, with more overall safety, for sure.

Electromagnetic interference a growing problem in Aviation

htc

Sun Nov 16 04:10:57 -0800 2008
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Interesting that you mention 9/11. What effect did this have on the death rate per mile of travel for car transport?

Electromagnetic interference a growing problem in Aviation

The Baron

Fri Nov 14 06:34:19 -0800 2008
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Except for the fact that, just like in the argument over whether cell phones cause brain cancer, there is far more high energy EMR naturally in the environment, especially for planes at high altitude, than a modern cell phone produces, even at max output.

If planes can fly through lightning storms without falling out of the sky, you are going to be hard pressed to get me to believe that even a hundred cell phones, all going at once, are going to bring a plane down. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.