UA 93: Cell phones and airphones

[John Doe II]

A physical miracle : Cell phone calls from UA 93

Before discussing if in fact cell phone calls from UA 93 would have been possible we first have to determine who used cell phones and how long the calls lasted. Based on the time of the calls we can then determine the altitude UA 93 was flying at the very moment of the call. Furthermore the way the call ended is noteworthy (did the call get disconnected?)

Passengers who are known to have made phone calls:
Todd Beamer: airphone, begin: 9:45, length: approx.: 13 minutes

Mark Bingham: airphone, begin: 9:42, 9:44 or 9:45, length: 3 minutes, got disconnected
Comment: Not only do all accounts stress the fact that Bingham used an airphone he even said this explicitly during his call. But what is strange is that the Commission points out: “All calls placed on airphones were from the rear of the aircraft.” (CR, 456, Foot.: 77)
But Bingham was claimed to have been in first class. Moreover the identification of Mark Rothenberg as the dead passengers is based on the assumption that no passenger from first class was herded into the rear of the plane. Moreover Bingham was Burnett’s neighbour and Burnett explicitly tells his wife that he is passing information to his neighbour. So all in all we have a clear contradiction here. Either Bingham is lying in his phone call or all other mentioned details are wrong. We will assume for this analysis that Bingham used indeed an airphone.

Sandra Bradshaw: unclear. While she was calling she was boiling water at the same time. This occupation and the fact that her colleague CeeCee Lyles used a cell phone indicates to me that a cell phone is more likely to have been used. Though this is not clear we don’t count this.

Marion Britton: extremely likely cell phone. Moreover according to CeeCee Lyles she was sitting in first calls. Therefore basing on the statement of the Commission we take it that she used indeed a cell phone. Beginning: “After 9:30”, 9:41. Length: Approx.: 4 minutes (my estimation based on the content of the call). Call got disconnected.

Tom Burnett: Cell phone. (For his first two calls we have the word of Deena Burnett (who saw Burnett’s ID on the phone’s display), for his third the note of Jere Longman. Moreover we can base this conclusion on the statement of the Commission as Burnett was sitting in first class and that nowhere it was challenged that Burnett used a cell phone). Call 1: Beginning: 9:27, Length: 30’. (my estimation based on the transcript) He hangs up. Call 2: Beginning: 9:31, Length: 1’ 30’’ (my estimation based on the transcript). He hangs up. Call 3: Beginning: 9:45, Length: 1’ 30’’ (my estimation based on the transcript). He hangs up. Call 4: Beginning: 9:54, Length: 1’ 30’’ (my estimation based on the transcripts). He hangs up.

Joe DeLuca: unclear. He did several phone calls although for some very strange reasons only a very short account of one call is public.

Edward Felt: Cell phone. As he called from the restroom it must have been a cell phone. Beginning: 9:58, Length: 1’ 12’’ (according to reports from the emergency dispatcher and his supervisor). The call got disconnected.

Andrew Garcia: Most likely a cell phone. This assumption is based on the fact that the call got disconnected after Garcia said only one word. The name of his wife. The time of the call is unknown.

Jeremy Glick: Contradicting accounts. As shown in the article on Glick’s phone call the first reports mentioned that he used a cell phone. Until today the majority of reports write this. As the call lasted much longer than 20 minutes the use of a cell phone at cruising altitude would of course be a real “miracle”. As reports are not clear we won’t count it as a cell phone call though it is very possible that indeed he used one.

Lauren Grandcolas: Very likely a cell phone. She is known to have passed “her phone” to her neighbour Elizabeth Wainio. It makes absolutely no sense that they do share an airphone. There were more airphones in coach section than passengers aboard! Therefore we take it as a fact what all newspapers wrote or implied: She used a cell phone. Beginning: Just before 9:50, Length: 30’’ (my estimation based on accounts of the call). She hangs up.

Linda Gronlund: Unclear. She did several phone calls from 9:53 though as in the case of her boy-friend Joe DeLuca only one call is reported.

CeeCee Lyles: Cell phone. Her husband Lorne Lyles who managed to take her second call reported that he saw her ID therefore we can assume that she used a cell phone. A flight attendant using a cell phone is of course extremely strange given the fact that she should very well know that there are airphones aboard and it is much more likely to come through using this kind of phone. Call 1: Beginning: 9:47, Length: unclear as no indication what she left as a message on her answering machine. But we can assume from the fact that she managed to leave a message that the length was at least: 15’. Call 2: 9:58, Length: 1’ 00’’ (my estimation based on accounts of the call). She got disconnected.

Louis J. Nacke II: Most likely cell phone. It is unclear till today if he in fact did a phone call. If the message his wife received that contained only “noise and a click” was indeed from him we should assume that he used a cell phone and got disconnected.

Unknown Flight attendant: Unclear She made her call at 9:35 to the San Franciscio maintenance center.

Elizabeth Wainio: Very likely cell phone. See the explanation given for Linda Gronlund who is supposed to have handed her phone to Elizabeth Wainio. Beginning: 9:51, Length: 11’ 00’’ (time given in reports. She witnessed the beginning of the passenger attack. For further information check out: “Deconstructing the lesser known phone calls”). She hangs up.


So, what we do have is an absolute minimum of 4 passengers using their cell phones (Britton, Burnett, Felt and Lyles) plus 4 passengers who most likely used them (Garcia, Grandcolas, Nacke and Wainio). We can add that we have two cases of extremely contradicting accounts: )Bingham and Glick. Two passengers we have no more details about (DeLuca and Gronlund) and in fact just a single person we definitely know that he used an airphone: Todd Beamer. Unfortunately the account of his phone call is the one that contains by far the biggest amount of contracitions.

Let’s just wait here for a second: Why do four and even most likely 8 passengers take their cell phones? Why does even a flight attendant go for her cell phone? Why do passengers that got disconnected NEVER try again to reach their beloved ones by using an airphone?

Fortunately for us we have one passenger using his cell phone: Tom Burnett. His use of his cell phone is beyond dispute. Contrary to several phone calls at the end of the flight where we might take into consideration that the altitude was far below normal cruising altitude at least the first three calls of Burnett have been made at cruising altitude. In fact his second call must have happened at a moment when according to the Commission UA 93 reached an altitude of 40,700 feet. His second and his third calls lasted approximately 1’ 30’’ each. And he never got disconnected. In fact the connection was that good that Deena Burnett heard him talking to his neighbours.
How is it possible that a cell phone works so well at an altitude of 35,000 to 40,700 feet and at cruising speed of 500 mph?
Furthermore how is the case of Elizabeth Wainio to be explained: She used most likely a cell phone and it worked for 11 minutes without getting disconnect?
And how on the other hand does Bingham’s airphone get disconnected after only three minutes? (I just assume for the sake of the argument that he is not lying).

[spooked911]

1. Burnett and Wainio had the same excellent cell phone service!

CIA-NGULAR perhaps?

[spooked911]

2. By the way, thank you for this excellent and important post!

[Kevin Fenton]

3. Nice work, but...

I’m not really a technical type, but I had a look at various articles and came up with this:

Phones in planes

How far from a base station can a phone operate?
22 miles. The problem is not strength of signal, but time delays.
“GSM’s wide frequencies give it scalability advantages, but the short time slots cause problems in keeping phones synchronized with each other. Radio signals take just over 0.003 microsecond to travel a kilometer (km), which adds up to a round-trip delay of around 0.4 microsecond for a phone only 60 km (40 miles) from the base station. The time slot only lasts 0.577 microsecond, so this delay is enough to make the phone miss its slot entirely, even though it would be unnoticeable to a human listener. In practice, GSM phones cannot be used more than 35 km (22 miles) from a BTS, no matter how strong the signal.”
http://www.networkmagazine.com/article/NMG20000517S0169
United 93 was never more than 7 miles up.

OK, that’s the theory, what’s the practice?
Generally, BTS do not have a range in excess of 10km.
“The current generation of GSM base stations cannot communicate over distances greater than 35 km because the delay in receiving radio signals becomes too great. However, the decline of signal strength with distance places a practical limit on coverage of around 10 km. For these reasons an extensive network of base stations is needed to ensure coverage throughout the UK.”
http://www.sitefinder.radio.gov.uk/mobilework.htm
However, much of the problem here is due to attenuation by landscape features, which do not pose a problem to a mobile phone in the air trying to connect to a BTS on the ground, at least after the signal gets out of the plane.

How powerful are most mobile phones?
Around 2 watts.
“Cell phones have low-power transmitters in them. Many cell phones have two signal strengths: 0.6 watts and 3 watts (for comparison, most CB radios transmit at 4 watts). The base station is also transmitting at low power.”
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cell-phone4.htm

How powerful are base stations? What is their range?
It depends. One base station can only handle a certain number of calls, so in cities there are lots of base stations with small cell areas, which gives a network a greater carrying capacity. In rural areas the demand on capacity is not so high, so there are less base stations, but they are more powerful than those in cities and cover a wider area. Therefore, if you take off over a built-up area, you may go out of range initially, but may be able to make a call later when over a more powerful rural base station.

Speed
Does the speed at which a plane travels affect a mobile phone?
To some extent.
“The high speed of air travel may make interference more likely than it would otherwise be. The maximum speed of travel in a mobile phone system is limited by several factors, frequency changes, rate of change of timing offset, etc. The speed of an aeroplane often exceeds these (typically phones are designed for use in a fast car) which means the mobile will fail to register to the network and retry registration repeatedly.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_on_aircraft
As far as I’m aware, the phones on 9/11 didn’t hop frequencies, so that’s not an issue here. Perhaps the success rate depends on how good a specific phone is, i.e. a good, expensive phone may have better results than a cheapo one. Nevertheless, it seems that speed does not make mobile phone use impossible in aircraft.

Attenuation
What is it?
“In telecommunication, attenuation is the decrease in intensity of a signal, beam, or wave as a result of absorption of energy and of scattering out of the path to the detector, but not including the reduction due to geometric spreading.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attenuate

Can a signal get through a plane’s fuselage?
Yes, but it may be weakened in doing so.
The German high-speed ICE train has problems with attenuation:
“All ICEs have "repeater" carriages, which are equipped with technology to enable mobile phone use (as the windows have a metal coating). Only in these carts cell phone use is possible. These carts are marked with a sticker of a symbolized mobile phone.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICE
As far as I know, Boeing’s windows do not have a metal coating. Perhaps it’s easier to make a call from a plane if you’re sitting by the window. I have problems with attenuation in the middle of my building, but not when I’m standing by the window.

History
Mobile phone use is now mostly banned on aircraft, was it allowed in the past?
Yes. But most countries which permitted it finally banned it after the crash of a Saab 340 out of Zurich in 2000, as the event was blamed on the receipt of a text message and subsequent call. At one point some airlines permitted calls in flight, but not during takeoff and landing. I guess that if it was permitted, then it was possible. Why bother permitting/banning something that’s impossible?

What is the fix now under discussion?
The problem is not that mobile phones don’t work on planes, it’s that they know they are a long way from their base station, so they transmit on full power, which makes interference with a plane’s instruments more likely. Also, the signal goes to multiple cells, which blocks the frequency for other users on the ground. The fix is to put a repeater on a plane. The phones would transit to the nearby repeater at low power, thus not interfering with the instrumentation, and the repeater would send the signal to a specific base station down below, without blocking the frequency everywhere.
“But perhaps the greatest issue is with the principle of frequency reuse. Mobile phones are designed to transmit only as far as the closest cell tower. This allows the same frequencies to be used by different phones in any non-adjacent cells, a key component in allowing tens or hundreds of thousands of people to use their phones at the same time in a given metropolitan area. From an altitude, distant cells are visible to the mobile with no line-of-sight attenuation from intervening obstacles. Because the cells are in some cases several tens of thousands of feet below the aircraft, the phone will transmit at its maximum power (also increasing the risk of interference with electronic equipment on the aircraft). Since the phone is occupying its frequency and channel in all of the cells its signal reaches to, that frequency and channel cannot be used by any other phones in any of those cells because of interference, resulting in an overall decrease in the cellular system's capacity.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_on_aircraft

Conclusion
I take this to mean that the supposed cell phone calls could theoretically have been made from United 93. However, this depends on the plane’s actual position vis-à-vis base stations on the ground and also, possibly, the specifics of the various phones used to make the calls.

[John Doe II]

4. Thanks for that!

The general idea of this thread is simply to clarify who used when what kind of telephone in order to make the discussion more precise and avoid generalization that don't help anybody.
Thanks a lot for all your technical input. I didn't know that. What I know is that all ingenieurs I know simply raised eyebrows to the possibility of the calls. And we have two examples of calls that got disconnected right away. Yet, neither Burnett nor Britton got ever disconnected. On the other hand Bingham got disconnect although using an airphone (at least this is what he said).
In any case: I believe we have all data we need in order to answer the question if theses calls would have been possible.
Btw: If you read my threads about the content of the calls you'll see what I think about them. They don't fit together. Not two calls bascially fit together. And each one has way too many contradictions in itself.

[John Doe II]

5. Kevin

sorry, I still didn't manage the time to looko deeper in your post. Only that I asked several engineers and they all agreed cell phone calls at crusing altitude and speed lasting let's say 1 1/2 min simply aren't possible. But I'll try to come back with more scientific explanation for this.

[philb]

6. Dwendney experiment implies cell phone calls not likely(or possible)

911 Cell Phone Call Experimental Evidence ( 911 calls likely faked)
http://physics911.ca/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6

[Kevin Fenton]

7. 7,000 feet

Don't know about most of the calls being made at 35,000 feet. Both United 93 and American 77 came down to 7,000 feet (United 93 when it turned its transponder on and American 77 when it was over the Pentagon) which I assume is so that they can navigate by sight. My guess is that this happened earlier rather than later. I think it's possible to haggle over which calls were made from airphones and which from cell phones, but some calls were evidently made from cell phones - if no calls were made from cell phones, why are there so many reports of it?

I think one of the problems you face is that if they were faked, why were they faked so badly? If it's impossible, why did the CIA (or whoever) do something that's obviously impossible? If they're good enough to fake the whole thing, how come they fake it so badly?

Also, how come there's things about the calls that indicate the plane was shot down - "mechanical sounds" etc.? If this is a "front-end" deception, how come it's enough to bring the government down if it becomes part of a limited hangout?

[petgoat]

8. I investigated the cell phone issue several months ago

and finally dropped that line of inquiry because I was getting
conflicting information (all anonymous internet sources) and could not
evaluate its credibility.

As I recall a major issue was "cascading" which is the tendency of a
signal to jump from one tower to the next, and which is apprently the
reason cell phones weren't allowed on planes--because cascading had the
potential to bring down the whole network. I'm sorry I can't provide a
link.

I also had information that a flight controller named Stacy Taylor put
flight 93's altitude at 41,000 feet when it passed over Youngstown.
I'm not aware that it caused any panic when it passed over Pittsburg, so
I'll suppose it was still pretty high then. Again, I no longer have the
links.

[Kevin Fenton]

9. Various

They seem to have been fairly worried at Pittsburg airport at least:
9:49 a.m.: Pittsburgh Flight Control Tower Evacuates
The FAA orders the Pittsburgh control tower evacuated. Shortly before the order, Cleveland flight controllers called Pittsburgh flight control to say that a plane is heading toward Pittsburgh and the pilot refuses to communicate. The plane is Flight 93.

The transponder was turned back on at 10:00
10:00 a.m.: Flight 93 Transponder Gives Brief Signal
The transponder for Flight 93 briefly turns back on. The plane is at 7,000 feet. The transponder stays on until about 10:03 a.m. It is unclear why the transponder signal briefly returns.

I don't think cascading due to calls from one flight can "bring the whole network down", they can just jam up places near where the plane is passing temporarily.

I think calls from a plane are plausible, but it would be necessary to actually fly the route and make the calls from the same type of phones to get near a definite answer. Maybe there are BTS in places that could pick up a signal from United 93, maybe there aren't. Obviously, the whole of the continental US is not covered at 35,000 feet, but maybe that area is.

[philb]

11. How does this mesh with Dwedney's physics911 experiment?

Are you saying that his experiment was problematic?
that he didn't use good cell phones or what was the problem?

[Kevin Fenton]

13. I looked at this

http://physics911.net/projectachilles.htm

The experiment seems to have taken place over a built-up area of 300,000 people with dense networks of cells. The denser cells become, the less powerful the transmitters are and the harder it is to make a call from a plane - I suspect the problem is the urban BTS on the ground, not the phones. Rural transmitters should be more powerful, because they are less dense.

[John Doe II]

10. A simple comparision

and a simple question:

Beamer uses an airphone at 9:45 and manages a 13 minutes call.
Bingham basically phones at the same time. Also with an airphone and gets disconnected after three minutes.

How can this difference be explained?

While Bingham only managed three minutes with an airphone Britton and Wainio managed much longer phone calls with simple cell phones.

How can this be explained?


While Wainio managed 11 minutes (9:50-10:01)and Britton four there are two calls that got disconnected immediatley.


While Wainio managed to phone from 9:50-10:01 using a cell phone at the same time Felt and Lyles phone at 9:58 and get disconnected after only one minute.

How can this be explained?

[spooked911]

12. Random chance?

I'm sure that's what OCT'ists would say, anyway.

But I don't even know how this would have been set up if the calls were actually faked.

It is just too weird.

[Kevin Fenton]

14. Airphone/cell phone

Bingham seems to have been distraught about the hijacking and may have ended the call himself, perhaps due to some event aboard the plane (for example he thought a hijacker was coming and would be angry with him for calling). Further, there may be problems with payment - could his calling card have ran out? I don't know whether high cell phone use would have affected the airphones, which operate on a frequency between 849 and 851 megahertz.

Whether a cell phone works on a plane or not depends on:
(1) How powerful the cell phone actually is;
(2) How fully the battery is charged;
(3) Which network it uses. For example a cell phone from company A might work, whereas a cell phone from company B does not.

If everybody calling from the plane had the same phone charged to the same level and a contract with the same company, then the results should be the same. However, since they did not meet these conditions, there is no reason the results should be the same.

[John Doe II]

15. Bingham

You write:
Bingham seems to have been distraught about the hijacking and may have ended the call himself, perhaps due to some event aboard the plane (for example he thought a hijacker was coming and would be angry with him for calling).

What should be the reason that Bingham hung up?
No hijacker coming back is reported in any phone call.
Burnett, Beamer and Glick are phoning at the same time yet they don't mention anything that could be a reason for Bingham to hang up.

The source states:
i]"And I said: 'Who are they?' And he repeated that he loves me and I think he said 'I don't know who they are'.
He became distracted there, as if someone else was speaking to him. He said something to the effect that it was true... and then the phone went dead."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/americas/1543466.stm

It's most likely his last call to his mother. What on earth could make him hang up? Moreover his mother states that the phone went dead. She doesn't mention the click of hanging up.

You write:
Further, there may be problems with payment - could his calling card have ran out?

As far as I know the airphones want to see credit cards. If I'm wrong please correct me.

You write:
I don't know whether high cell phone use would have affected the airphones, which operate on a frequency between 849 and 851 megahertz.

But then why didn't they also effect the calls of Beamer and Glick who also used an airphone?

If everybody calling from the plane had the same phone charged to the same level and a contract with the same company, then the results should be the same. However, since they did not meet these conditions, there is no reason the results should be the same.

This answer - as logical as it sounds - has the advantage that the whole discussion can be ended. Of course not everything was similar.

Yet, I'd like to know:
Can in the best circumstances a cellphone manage a phone call of 90 seconds at cruising altitude and crusing speed? The rest of the paramter you can chose as you want.

And how likely is it that a cellphone manages eleven minutes and an airphone only three?

How likely is it that another airphone manages more than twenty minutes?

[Kevin Fenton]

16. Bingham

may have hung up because he was distraught and didn't want to alarm his mother. He may have been thinking he would call her back later. As he seems to have been upset, it is no wonder that his actions were illogical. There are a million reasons he may have hung up.

"Can in the best circumstances a cellphone manage a phone call of 90 seconds at cruising altitude and crusing speed? The rest of the paramter you can chose as you want."
I don't know. I've looked into it and it seems to me that it's not impossible. It depends where the plane is - it obviously wouldn't work over the Atlantic Ocean, for example. The distance is a few miles and is well within the range of a BTS. I've never used a mobile phone on a plane myself. It's hard to say how the speed would affect them, although the "fix" to make cell phones work on planes addresses different problems, so I guess speed isn't the main barrier to cell phone use on planes.
The real question is whether there were suitably positioned BTS on the route, but we don't know that.
I think it is more likely that the calls were genuine than they were faked by a bunch of incompetents without the slightest clue about mobile phones.

[John Doe II]

17. Bingham II

may have hung up because he was distraught and didn't want to alarm his mother.
His mother doesn't notice the click in the connection. He alarmed her already. What could have been the reason that he didn't want to alarm her anymore?

He may have been thinking he would call her back later
Well, then why doesn't he call back?

It depends where the plane is
We know roughly well where the plane is supposed to have been at 9:44.

I think it is more likely that the calls were genuine than they were faked by a bunch of incompetents without the slightest clue about mobile phones.
If they are genuine we should be able to answer the basic question which I've quoted several times already.

Let me add one interesting question:
Why did Bingham's mother knew at 9:54 that UA 93 was hijacked??

[Kevin Fenton]

18. Mother

Perhaps his mother didn't notice the click in the connection because she her mind was on other things, like her son was in danger.

Perhaps the reason he didn't want to alarm her anymore was because she was alarmed already. I've never been hijacked, what does one say in such a situation?

Perhaps the reason he didn't call her back is because he was dead.

My point with the plane's location is that it is not over either the sea or a desert, but a rural area, which may have the requisite BTS.

Perhaps Bingham's mother knew at 9:54 that United 93 had been hijacked because her son had called her several minutes previously and told her so.

[John Doe II]

19. 12 minutes

Bingham still had twelve minutes to call her back before the passenger's attack started.

which may have the requisite BTS.

As I said cruising altitude and speed are the known factors. The rest you can choose.


Perhaps Bingham's mother knew at 9:54 that United 93 had been hijacked because her son had called her several minutes previously and told her so.

Stupid my question is stupdily formulated as I believed you have read my analysis of the lesser known phone calls. Here's the passage I had in mind raising this question:

“Alice Hoglan, a United flight attendant who was phoned by her son, Mark Bingham, a passenger on the plane, while the hijacking was in progress, called him back at 9:54 a.m. and left two messages on his cellphone, urging him and the other passengers to rush the cockpit because the flight appeared to be a suicide mission. Her son, who she believes helped try to retake the plane, apparently never got the messages, but Ms. Hoglan later retrieved them from the phone company.
'Mark, apparently it's terrorists and they're hell-bent on crashing the aircraft,' Ms. Hoglan said in the second message, urgency in her voice. 'So, if you can, try to take over the aircraft. There doesn't seem to be much plan to land the aircraft normally, so I guess your best bet would be to try to take it over if you can, or tell the other passengers. There is one flight that they say is headed toward San Francisco. It might be yours. So, if you can, group some people and perhaps do the best you can to get control of it. I love you, sweetie. Good luck. Goodbye.'”
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/27/national/27TAPE.html?ex=1120363200&en=b1c23281b9a4df77&ei=5070&oref=login

I have NOWHERE heard or seen that the info of a plane to San Francisco being hijacked was on the TV before 9:54.

But let me repeat it over and over again:
Let's talk about the real contradictions. The real questions of the phone calls. Can you answer the basic question I 've raised again and again here?

[Kevin Fenton]

20. Bingham, BTS, Hoglan

"Bingham still had twelve minutes to call her back before the passenger's attack started."
Perhaps he was too busy doing other stuff, like preparing to storm the cockpit. Perhaps he thought he'd call again after they took the cockpit, to give her the good news. There are lots of reasons he may not have called back in those 12 minutes.

If the BTS were there, the cell phone calls could have been successful. If they weren't, they couldn't. As don't have a map of all BTS locations in Pennsylvania at that time, I don't know.

There was no flight headed towards San Francisco under the control of hijackers at that time, so the information Alice Hoglan is said to have given is erroneous. United 93 had been headed towards SF until the hijackers turned it round. Alice Hoglan clearly knew that there was a flight bound for SF that had been hijacked, as her son had previously informed her of this. She may well have confused information from two sources - the media and her son, in the manner everybody is always confusing information.
Further, there is the problem of where Longman got this information. Did he listen to the transcript and copy it out verbatim, or did he obtain it in another manner? Often when dealing with transcripts I find that people say, "er" and "um" and that the end of one sentence doesn't match it's beginning. At the very least, the Hoglan transcript appears to have been tidied up.

[John Doe II]

21. Longman listened to the two calls

Alice Hoglan made to Mark Bingham.
In his bookd he clearly states that she made him listen these two calls.
Therefore a sort of explanation as in the gun question is not possible. As Lonman listened to the orginal.
So, how could she have seen on TV before 9:54 that UA 93 was hijacked?

[Kevin Fenton]

22. She didn't

AFAIK she didn't see anything about United 93 on TV before 9:54.

She saw stuff on TV that some planes had been hijacked and she received the call from her son. Then she mixed the two sets of reports together. This is typical behaviour.

I found these paragraphs from an article discussing eyewitness reliability (or rather lack thereof) relevant:
"But it is not just the thorny issue of recognising a face that confuses witnesses. Witnesses' recollection of every aspect of an incident can be contaminated by what they hear from other people.

Forensic psychologist Dr Fiona Gabbert has been working at Aberdeen University with Professor Amina Memon on the distortions in eyewitness recollection.

"Memories are very vulnerable to error. If you witness a crime and then read a local news report everything can be combined in your memory at a later date," she said."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4177082.stm

[John Doe II]

24. This explanation

might be true. Might be not.
Yet, do you intend at one point to discuss the real big contradictions?
I don't know but I somehow repeated this question already but still you always discuss small minor important points.

[vincent_vega_lives]

23. Flight 93 fought back

“All calls placed on airphones were from the rear of the aircraft.” (CR, 456, Foot.: 77)
But Bingham was claimed to have been in first class.

Made clear that the hijackers moved all of the passengers and crew to coach.

Moreover the identification of Mark Rothenberg as the dead passengers is based on the assumption that no passenger from first class was herded into the rear of the plane.

The ID was done before the passengers were herded into the rear.

flight attendant using a cell phone is of course extremely strange given the fact that she should very well know that there are airphones aboard and it is much more likely to come through using this kind of phone.

You fail to mention only 8 airphones can be in use at any one time.

How is it possible that a cell phone works so well at an altitude of 35,000 to 40,700 feet and at cruising speed of 500 mph?

Flight 93 began to loose altitude as soon as the hijacker's took over the pilot seat.

[John Doe II]

25. Answers

Made clear that the hijackers moved all of the passengers and crew to coach.

If you read my analysis of all calls you'd know that the report all and everybody was in coach is only told in very few cases. In fact if I recall correctly only in one call.
So, what do you think about Todd Beamer stating that 10 are in first and 27 in coach (or vice versa there is big confusion in his call yet the numbers stay the same)?
Or all the passengers who didn't tell of any being herded in the back.
Reportings that speak of two attacks. One planed by Beamer and one by Burnett.

The ID was done before the passengers were herded into the rear.
Sorry, but how was the ID of the dead passenger done? And why does Beamer speak of two dead crewmember and not only one dead passenger.

You fail to mention only 8 airphones can be in use at any one time.
Yes, I failed to do so. Thanks for the correction. yet, it doesn't change anything because at no point were even 4 airphones being used at the same time. Unless of course there are phone calls that till today have never been mentioned.


Flight 93 began to loose altitude as soon as the hijacker's took over the pilot seat.

Not true.
The alleged hijackers entered the cockpit at 9:28.
Between 9:34 and 9:38, the Cleveland controller observed United 93 climbing to 40, 700 feet and immediately moved several aircraft out its way. (CR, 29)

The plane climbed after the hijacking started. And it was at 40,700 when Burnett was on his cell phone.

[batcave911]

26. cell phone design engineer here...

i have been a desgn engineer for Sprint PCS, Verizon and some other companies for years now.
Let me try to address a few points here...

First, i am glad someone took the time to do all of this, i worked with Kee Dewdney on putting together something similar years ago, but a lot of it is lost from my hard drive now.

a lot of old technical discussions can be found here...
http://physics911.ca/org/modules/xfsection/article.php?articleid=1
http://physics911.ca/org/modules/xfsection/article.php?articleid=2

a few points...
the Commission points out: “All calls placed on airphones were from the rear of the aircraft.”

I didnt know that. Is there anything we can do to confirm this?
I would like to take it at face value, but 1/2 of what the commission said is BS IMHO.

I am not sure if there are/were any airphones in the front of the cabin?
As far as some of the technical stuff, most phones today (and in 2001) are CDMA, not GSM, though some are GSM, i dont know what percent may have been what in that area at that time.

I DID look into customer complaints of the western Penn area for summer of 2001, and the service was VERY POOR !
i lost the URL, but there were quite a lot of complaints.
I think it was verizon, it was a message board for one of the providers in that area.

The thing that amazes me the MOST is the 1 call that state police (911 dispatcher) took in Illinois.
http://physics911.ca/org/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=65


http://imageshack.us>




this makes NO SENSE !
If the call was made in Pa by a cell phone, then it would have been routed through the local switch. then to the LOCAL police.

IMHO, we caught them with their pants down, and no underwear.

- this call was a total fabrication.
- OR, there was a plane in trouble in chicago,
- OR, there was an excersice where someone was told to call 911

i seriously doubt B or C.
i think this call was Bull...



OK, that out the way, more on tehcnical stuff...
When i design a cell site, i DOWNTILT the antennas.
this makes the signal go to the immediate area you want it.
now, in rural areas, sometimes there is an OMNI antenna that runs 360degrees, then you dont downtilt, you let it blow as far as possible.
the reason you usually dont do this, is you dont want signals intermixing, you want them to stop where the other takes over.
when you are in a plane thousands of feet up, there are TONS of signals, this isnt good at all.
the phone doesnt know which site to handoff to.
if a signal comes in thats not in the handoff list, the call drops.
(thats IF you can make a call at that height.)

SPEED.
speed DOES make a difference.
i changed one antenna in alabama to work for cars on the freeway, cos they were going too fast.
i did the drive test, if you drove too fast there, the call would drop.
that was going 60-70mph.
think of going 450mph 35-40,000ft in the air ?

The antennas have a "roll-off", so going straight up doesnt work.
the signal is virtually nill.
in a plane, you would not be working on the antennas directly below you, cos they would have less signal, antennas miles from you would be more in the line of sight.
this scenario makes the handoff list useless.
almost all calls would drop IMHO.

most cell phones work at 1.8GHZ, and only a few still at 850Mhz
the higher you go, the more line of sight.
this is pretty far up there, so the planes skin DOES make a BIG difference.
which means you would have to get signal through the windows...
meaning even less signal from sites below you...
and even MORE handoff problems !

thats IF you ever establish a call at that height.
IMHO, its 1 in 1000 to get a stable 10 second call
at say 30,000ft and up.

other info...
cell phones now are ususally LESS than .6watts.
there are no more 3 watt transmitters, and never were 3 watt handhelds. (FCC rules)
The base stations power has more to do with the type antenna is used, than what the power is tweaked too.
most cell phones top out at .4 watts now.
cell phones are reverse link limited, meaning the call depends more on the reciever of the phone, than the transmitter.


cell phones battery.
the battery has NO effect on the power of the cell phone.
big myth here.
there is a power regulator, either it works, or it dont.
kinda like being 1/2 pregnent, no such thing.

more...
http://analysis.batcave.net/cell_phones.html


hope that helps,
Brad
http://911index.batcave.net

[batcave911]

27. BTW, i tried it...

shhhh...
dont tell anyone, but....

i tried several calls on several flights now.
never made a connect over 5,000ft that lasted more than 2-3 seconds.
i get signal sometimes, but only a few ever connected, and none for more than a few seconds.

the cell phones cuasing planes to go down is BS.
cell companies didnt want them, NOT the FAA.

now, ive heard that some people have used them in SMALL planes at low altitude going 1-200 mph,
but thats a big difference.

i have a hard time belving that these calls were faked, but even a harder time believing that 4 or more people made several cell calls on flight 93
i checked the altitude,
in the spots some of them were supposedly used,
the plane was above 30,000 at 400+mph.

adding to this, the illinois call that has me VERY suspicious...

Brad

[Kevin Fenton]

28. Cell phone wattage

You said:
"cell phones now are ususally LESS than .6watts."

I checked an old phone (the sort that might have been in use in 2001), the Siemens C35i, and this link:
http://www.ciao.co.uk/Siemens_C35i_C35__Review_5261196
says:
"· GSM Class 4 (2 Watts) Frequency range 880-960 MHZ"
"· GSM Class 1 (1 Watt) Frequency range 1710-1880 MHZ"
Does that indicate cell phones were generally more powerful in 2001 than today?

[Ferry Fey]

29. Flight attendants with cell phones?

If flight attendants were not usually able to use cell phones while on the plane, would they necessarily have them on them in their uniform back in 2001, when the cell phones were much larger than today's models?

If not, where would a flight attendant's personal belongs be during a flight on that kind of plane, and would that be accesible under the circumstances?

[greenman2]

34. i remember....

in 2001 they wernt that small, unless yours was real old at the time i guess.
i had a flip phone in 2001, and it was going obsolete.
i used to repair the old motorola "brick phones"
YEARS ago.
they were big.
as far as power, ALL portables were limited to .6 watts.
there was what was called a bag phone, and those were 3 watts,
though they were actually limited to 5 watts per FCC
the reason being how close to your head the antenna is.
actually, one thing i learned along they way, is that the frequency of cell phones...
800mhz, or 1900 mhz
is close to the size of your skull.
so the RF can bounce around creating a resonant cavity.
not a good thing with high power and soft tissue.
i also did some RF radation exposure testing.
but my findings were that todays cell phones are safe.
another FYI, is that the destructive power (RF energy) is heat.
(kinda like a microwave oven)
so its NOT cumulative.
in other words, if you use it 5 mins a day, the effects dont add together...
cheeers,
brad
like i said, i worked in this industry a long time.
http://911review.org

[greenman2]

33. look at the URL you posted Kevin....

http://www.ciao.co.uk
that would be UK, as in united Kingdom.
in the US portables are restricted to .6 watts as per FCC regs.
i have an FCC license.
i worked in this industry for 14 years, fixing handsets and designing cell phone systems.

Portable Cellular Phone- A small battery powered cellular phone most often smaller than a cordless phone used in the home. These portable cellular phones are limited to .6 watts of power
http://www.911phone.net/p0000003.htm

Today's phones still broadcast at around 800-900 MHz, as well as the 1800-1900 Mhz frequencies. They also use alot less power, around .6 watts, thanks to cell tower density and digital transmission.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/02/0511256

http://analysis.batcave.net/9-11_cell_calls.html

cellonplanes
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/cellonplanes.html

[Andre II]

35. Thanks for the info

:toast:

[Andre II]

30. Great news!

"European aeroplane passengers will be able to make cellphone calls during flights as early as 2006, with wireless internet following closely behind"
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8031

[mirandapriestly]

32. My, they must have had very technologically advanced cell phones!nt

[Andre II]

31. Kick

:kick:

[Andre II]

36. Kick

due to new question.

[Bolo Boffin]

37. Zombie Thread from the Tombstoned

Why are you kicking threads from tombstoned disruptors?

[Grateful for Hope]

38. Interesting that you are always aware of who has been TS'ed. n/t

[Bolo Boffin]

39. You can be aware of it too.

There's a little rolodex card button on the top of every poster's post here, Hope.

You punch it, and it brings up their profile. When someone's been tombstoned, a tombstone appears there.

Also, when someone else does this, they may bring it to our attention. That's what happened with JohnDoeII. I was unaware of it until another poster mentioned it in another thread. That's when I found out. Andre here has been busy last night, bumping a lot of JohnDoeII posts.

Don't you find that interesting? That a poster would kick a lot of posts, the OPer of which has been evicted from DU as a disruptor?

If you don't find that interesting, why not?

[Grateful for Hope]

40. Not that I care to kick JohnDoe's posts

But. just because someone is deemed a disruptor does not mean that person had nothing valuable to share.

[Name removed]

42. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Grateful for Hope]

44. Yes, MP, and who of us really wants to see someone

TS'ed? And, who of us keeps track of who is TS'ed?

Just askin'.

[mirandapriestly]

41. Yes, interesting.nt

[Andre II]

45. Tombstoned

Does the fact somebody is tombstoned change the quality of the work?
Does it change anything if the thread is still a good overview about the raised question?
And btw a user in another thread explicitly asked for such an overview.
Is there anything disruptive in this thread?

[Make7]

47. I'm going to jump in here in defense of John Doe II.

I was really surprised when he got tombstoned. He was one of the people around here that did a great deal of original research and would present his viewpoint for comment. I almost never agreed with what he was proposing, but would often jump in with my viewpoint along with my comparatively minuscule amount of of research. When I would point out something that didn't make sense to me, or something that I thought was wrong, he would always be open to discuss it and try to see things from my perspective. And I would try to do the same.

In other words, we disagreed all the time but we actually had productive conversations. That's not always an easy thing to do - as I am sure we are all well aware. I think this place could use some more people around here like him. He was not a disruptor, perhaps just overly enthusiastic.

Honestly, I wish he was still posting here.

- Make7

[vincent_vega_lives]

52. I agree

I always thought him courteous, thoughtful and enthusiastic if somewhat misguided.

Not sure why he was caned.

[AZCat]

53. Yep, always polite and respectful, even in our private communications.

He had some questions and was kind enough to ask my opinion, even though it was apparent I wasn't a supporter of his theories.

Sometimes the reason posters are tombstoned isn't apparent because either the relevant posts were deleted or the issue reached a head in private conversation with the moderators. I'm sure their reasons were logical and sufficient.

[Ferry Fey]

43. Rural cell phones

If the call was made in Pa by a cell phone, then it would have been routed through the local switch. then to the LOCAL police.

I don't think that's always the case. I live in a mountainous area of upstate NY, and don't have a cell phone as we currently don't have any coverage in my town. But at one point, and this was back around 2001, we had a cell phone simply for my husband to use on hikes, as he's sometimes off in the mountains for several days, and can manage to call in from the mountain tops.

He once was able to call 911 about a forest fire a couple of ranges back from the nearest town. It was really frustrating for him trying to communicate where he was calling from to a 911 operator who was clearly out of our area and had no idea about what being up a mountain might entail. She was looking for "what roads in which town" information, whereas he was somewhere where 3 counties met and couldn't narrow it down even to a county. Our local 911 people could have handled that sort of thing fine.

I had to borrow a cell phone to call AAA about a breakdown recently. Only one person could offer hers, as it was a Nextel and evidently none of the other cell phones people had could get a signal.

Is there information on which particular cell services would have allegedly been used, that could indicate whether the less plausible was impossible because of that?

[Ferry Fey]

48. Graphing phone type, duration and altitude?

Has anyone graphed what is known about the type of phone that made each call, duration of each call, and estimated altitude during the calls?

It seems to me that this would help get a better handle on what was going on.

[savemefromdumbya]

46. if they were on the ground thay could make calls from cell phones

and they were

[Mind_your_head]

49. I am coming to that same conclusion myself

The only two who "were to known" to purportedly used airphones were Todd Beamer and Mark Bingham. There are very many oddities about both of these men and their calls/messages.

It makes one go hmmmmmmmmmm :think:

on edit adding: Could that also answer the question of why so 'few' or most/any passengers did NOT use the airphones even though they should have been 'abundantly' available, according to the story?

[savemefromdumbya]

50. if they didn't die in the so called hijack where are they?

[Mind_your_head]

51. I (we) have no way of knowing that from the current available evidence

eom

[Andre II]

54. Official phone call animation

Here the analysis of the official animation of these phone calls. It doesn't come as a surprise that officially only two calls were made by cell phone. It doesn't come as a surprise that the official animation is full of omittions, errors and amazing contradictions.
http://www.team8plus.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?4134

[greyl]

55. 8 were made by airphone, correct?

Or was it 10?