Cell Phone Calls?

I know there has been a lot of discussion about the cell phone calls made from the airplanes, especially FL 93. My question is this: Has anybody heard of any records of cell phone calls made TO the passengers on the planes?

I would think that if the phones worked from inside the planes, there would have to be at least one concerned family member who would have tried to make a call to one of the passengers on FL 93 and FL 77. It just seems odd that all the reported calls originated from the planes, yet there are no reports of calls (that I know of) to the passengers on the planes.

Good Question I haven't seen addressed yet.
As far as I know all were outgoing, but some callers made multiple calls, and some of those second halves could've been call-backs.

One thing about the phone record is its ncompleteness. We only know of the calls that've been reported. Here's a crappy chart I made of the calls I know of.




I was looking at cell phone calls vs. airfone vs. altitide, on the presumption that calls from above (18,oo?) were unlikely. N/A answers are said to be airfone calls.

Oh now we're gonna get derailed! Any reports of incoming calls anyone?

Thats a pretty nice crappy chart, thanks for putting that together Mr. Logic

For a crap chart, it is not very good!!

There are 5280 ft in a mile. At 40,000 ft that puts the callers 7.5 miles above the base stations. Most base stations only have a range of around 10 miles horizontally, and then it is limited by the actual handset itself. Range may be further in good conditions, but based on where the masts are located, this seems to be about the range they are capable of.

Consider for a moment that the aerials radiate horizontally. Obviously transmissions made into the sky is wasted energy, which the phone companies aren't going to want to pay for.

With that said, if the nominal range is 10 miles, and the aircraft is not only near the edge of that at 7.5 miles, but above the masts as well, and out of the optimum area for coverage, I'd put the chances of making a phone call at almost zero. I'm not going to say impossible because there are always the exceptions.

You might be interested in tihs article: news.bbc.co.uk...

Quite relavent to this discussion I think!

[edit on 21-5-2007 by mirageofdeceit]

[edit on 21-5-2007 by mirageofdeceit]

Originally posted by Caustic Logic

I was looking at cell phone calls vs. airfone vs. altitide, on the presumption that calls from above (18,oo?) were unlikely. N/A answers are said to be airfone calls.

Oh now we're gonna get derailed! Any reports of incoming calls anyone?

Nice chart!

The ambassadors at the FL 93 Memorial claim over 20 phone calls were made from FL 93. The latest in the "hero story" is that one of the passengers called to say that they were going to wait until the plane was in a rural area to start their attack against the hijackers. The passenger apparently said that he saw the rivers of Pittsburgh which meant it was time to get ready to start the attack.

I still don't recall ever hearing of an incoming call to the cell phones. I wonder if there's a technical reason that it would be easier calling out than receiving an incoming call.

Originally posted by mirageofdeceit

Consider for a moment that the aerials radiate horizontally. Obviously transmissions made into the sky is wasted energy, which the phone companies aren't going to want to pay for.

With that said, if the nominal range is 10 miles, and the aircraft is not only near the edge of that at 7.5 miles, but above the masts as well, and out of the optimum area for coverage, I'd put the chances of making a phone call at almost zero. I'm not going to say impossible because there are always the exceptions.

Something else to consider is this:

Ever tried making a call on a high speed train? Hard work..

You phone will "jump" from one cell to another quite quickly and there is a good chance that the call will be dropped. happens to me all the time and thats on trains doing 100-120 Mph.

Imagine not only being above the mast by 7.5 miles, as described above, but also doing 500+ Mph. You will be shooting across cells at a much faster pace than can be managed and the call, if it even connects, will be dropped quite quickly.