Originally Posted by stimpy
Actually there have been studies shown that they were never a safety problem in the first place. Search on flyertalk for several threads on this subject. Or you can fly Lufthansa from Munich to LAX for instance and try WiFi yourself. AA recently had a test flight with normal cell phones using a pico-cell on the plane which beamed up to a satellite.
I was just watching a History Channel show about a theory put forth by a Harvard professor about emi causing the problems that downed TWA 800 and SwissAir 111.
The theory revolved around the route taken by both planes over Long Island and an adjacent quadrant of air space used for military flights and maneuvers.
What was a little scary was that both planes took off at 8:19 pm on a Wednesday and there was thoughts of a periodic military activity causing emi to affect both planes.
The NTSB decided to have a couple of government agencies lookat the emi problem including NASA and the conclusion was that emi wasn't the cause of TWA 800, but the NTSB said that it would be looking at emi as potential cause of future crashes.
Since SwissAir 111 was investigated by the Canadians, I don't know that there was the same level of investigation inot emi.
Just wondered if the NTSB had since come out and stated that emi was not an issue with airliners.
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