Travel Technology - Emergency and/or collect calls on AirPhones

I'm doing some background reading on AA 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11. According to one account, pax Barbara Olson used an AirPhone to call the Justice Dept. collect. My question is, is it possible to make any call on an Airphone w/o a credit card?

Also, are either of the following claims true?:

The technology to enable cell phone calls from high-altitude airline flights was not created until 2004.

AA's 757 fleet (in Sept. 2001) did not have in-seat phones.

essxjay : ".. are either of the following claims true?"
The technology to enable cell phone calls from high-altitude airline flights was not created until 2004.
Depends on your interpretation of some technicalities: the capability to make mobile (or portable-unit) calls has existed for decades ~ called it "radio-phone". You communicated with a high-power fixed base that did the 'patch' between radio and land-line; if/when you moved out of radio range, that call was done.

Cellular 'technology' roughly refers to the concept of connecting many low-power fixed sites together, with the capability of handing-off an in-progress call to the next site (cell)... Here's a history lesson (http://www.privateline.com/mt_cellbasics/ii_cellular_history/) :D
At the end of the day, it's ALL some flavor of two-way radio!

The 'operational technology' of AirPhone (and it's cousins) falls somewhat in-between ~ with their own non-interferring frequency allocations. Recall that the FCC gets pissy about using your consumer-grade cellphone at altitude.

is it possible to make any call on an Airphone w/o a credit card?
IHNFI. Fair to assume that "Anything's possible" ~ your pocket-phone likely has a 'technician service mode' accessable by p/w.

AA's 757 fleet (in Sept. 2001) did not have in-seat phones.That'd be one for AA. Ask 'em.

Attn: Nit-Pickers ~ what'cha want for a 3-minute post? :D
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I'm doing some background reading on AA 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11. According to one account, pax Barbara Olson used an AirPhone to call the Justice Dept. collect. My question is, is it possible to make any call on an Airphone w/o a credit card?

Also, are either of the following claims true?:

No ideas on collect calls, cell phones at altitude are erratic but not out of the question. Using them at altitude would cause headaches for the network as you would be stepping on nearby cells. The mere distance is *NOT* too much, though--back in that era I had no problem and plenty of signal strength accessing a particular tower from 10 miles away horizontally. I don't know how far away it could be accessed, that was the distance to the hill that would cut the signal.

As I believe you'll get some focused help for your Q in our Travel Technology forum, let me move it there for further discussion. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

I've heard from private pilots that making calls from several thousand feet works fine. I don't know offhand the altitude the jets on 9/11 were flying at, but it's certainly likely they were not at a very high altitude. If anything, the older analog standards were more likely to make a successful call because they operated at higher power. In 2001, a lot of people still had dual-mode digital/analog phones.

Cell phone usage in flight is banned for various reasons, but nobody says it's impossible.

The Airfones did allow collect calls, and you could connect with an operator without a credit card by dialing "0". Here are pictures from 1998 (http://www.airliners.net/photo/American-Airlines/Boeing-757-2.../0020665/M/) and from 2002 (http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=35569&nseq=13) showing AA 757s with Airfones. AA was the launch customer for Airfone.

Not that this is going to change anybody's mind -- they'll just say the 1998 photo was just uploaded now and the government made the website change the date on the page.

United used to allow free calls to Mileage Plus and Reservations from the Airphone. The main draw was for folks to sign up for MP. Ma and Kettle getting to use the Airphone were much more likely to try to sign up rather than filling out a form. Seriously. :o

You could also call and register your seat number with the Airphone folks and people could call them they would patch the call to you and the phone would ring at your seat. :cool:

Also for the period after verizon bought out airfone a verizon user could use the phone for, I believe $.69, or for $.10 per minute if they paid some monthly fee. It interfaced directly with verizon, it wasn't just that you forwarded your calls, as it was when it came to using verizon internationally. (Due to verizon just using forwarding to a GSM company for over seas, and not allowing text messages due to that, but that's a different story for a different day.)

There is also another plane phone system on commercial jets, that I believe is in operation today correct me if I'm wrong. It relies entirely upon satellites as opposed to Airfone which used mainly base stations.

However, if I'm correct airfone used satellites, only on United fleet, and the price was quite large.

Also, correct me again if I'm wrong on this, just a quick post from memory.

I've heard from private pilots that making calls from several thousand feet works fine. I don't know offhand the altitude the jets on 9/11 were flying at, but it's certainly likely they were not at a very high altitude. If anything, the older analog standards were more likely to make a successful call because they operated at higher power. In 2001, a lot of people still had dual-mode digital/analog phones.

Pre 9/11 I was next to someone who tried to use a cell from about 5,000'. It worked fine except he couldn't understand anyone because of the noise--this was a little 4-seater, not a jetliner.

Remember that the 9/11 hijacker-pilot had disabled the transponder and was flying low to avoid radar (together with making it easier to visually spot a new target).

The reason that DC hijackers "failed" was because they picked targets that which were low to the ground. Once you got control of a plane, hitting the World Trade Center wasn't difficult (as anyone who ever played Flight Simulator knows).

On several occasions I've heard cell phones ringing in carry-ons stashed in the overhead bin.

So to sum up:

The technology to enable cell phone calls from high-altitude airline flights was not created until 2004.

True. But as mentioned, these were low-altitude flights. Numerous reports say that the planes descended to avoid radar contact, and since the Pentagon (hit by AA77) is a low building, and was hit at a low angle, that plane must have been low and level for a few minutes at least.

It is very possible, easy in fact, to make a cell phone call from a few thousand feet in a jet. I mistakenly left my iPhone on last time I flew into Dallas and saw it light up with four bars and EDGE as we descended well before landing - at least five minutes out. And the old analog phones were much more capable.

AA's 757 fleet (in Sept. 2001) did not have in-seat phones.

Yes, they did. In-seat phones were fairly common by late 2001, and as mentioned AA did install them in their 757s. I have no evidence that N644AA (http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNumSQL.asp?NNumbertxt=644AA&cmndfind.x=0&cmndfind.y=0) had them, but I wouldn't be at all surprised. It was a 1991 plane, so an interior upgrade by 2001 wouldn't be all that unusual.

The supposed "smoking gun" (that AA denied having Airfones on their 757s) was nonsense - the response was that they didn't have them in 2005, which is true, not that they didn't have them in 2001, which is not.

The absurd thing is that in 5 minutes I found pictures from 1998 and 2002 of AA 757s with Airfones, showing that the AA did indeed have Airfones on 757s in that time period.

Any further assertions from these guys should be met with, "You deliberately lied to me about Airfones on AA 757s. Why should I believe anything else you say?"

fyi, pedxing, I did not make those claims you attributed to me. I simply asked whether the propositions were true. The whole point in my asking about them here is that I'm reading conflicting reports from politically-motivated sources. I figured FTers, who have no particular dog in the fight, would give me the straight, unembellished dope.

So I do thank you -- and everyone else -- for taking the time to respond. It clears up some of my questions.

fyi, pedxing, I did not make those claims you attributed to me. I simply asked whether the propositions were true.

Yes, you're right. I knew you weren't making the claims, but my modified quotes might have seemed like I was saying otherwise.

And yeah, I've got no interest in these theories, but find some of the claims ridiculous when compared to my own experience flying. FYI, Airfone released a press release (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1997_Oct_14/ai_19856025) in 1997 claiming that 75 million calls had been made. That shows just how widespread and reliable (albeit expensive) the technology was by 2001! I remember not being at all surprised on Sep 11 and later that people made Airfone and cell calls from the planes - it just fit into my normal world as a traveler that people would do that.

The amazing thing is how quickly Airfones "died" since then! Even without a replacement, AA was ripping them out of their planes in 2004, and they're rare now. I can imagine people saying "gosh, Airfones are rare" after flying today if they didn't have experience on planes in the 2000-2001 timeframe.

As for cell calls, that's just so ridiculously easy to prove, it amazes me people make claims about it. They should go buy a ticket, ignore the announcement, and make a call as the plane is about to land. It will work. And then the kooks might get banned from flying and do us all a favor! :D