Creepy: Is Somebody Hacking Airplane Intercoms?

A number of days in the past I wrote a couple of weird factor occurring with the intercoms of some American Airways jets. There’s now precise video and audio footage of this, and it’s even stranger than I might have imagined.

Studies of bizarre noises on airplane intercoms

The all the time insightful @xJonNYC has an attention-grabbing thread about some bizarre occurrences on airways these days, involving the intercom.

The primary report was from an American Airways Boeing 737-800, the place there have been repeated hacking, moaning, and screaming noises over the PA. The flight attendants even stood by their telephones all through the cabin, to verify nobody was making an attempt to make use of them.

@xJonNYC then shares what I assume are messages from some kind of flight attendant messaging board, with comparable studies, containing much more particulars.

Right here’s one report from a flight attendant on an American Airbus A321T, which is downright creepy:

• The pilot referred to as again to the flight attendants to see if somebody was making an attempt to get in contact with the cockpit, since their telephone stored going off; once they picked up, somebody was respiration into the telephone, however didn’t say something
• Then the telephone would begin going off within the cabin, however when the flight attendants picked up, there was only a tone sound
• Then there would out of the blue be loud respiration, groaning, and moaning noises over the PA, and “it sounded fully out of a horror movie”
• Then the grasp energy button close to the ahead left door would hold getting pushed, and would shut down all IFE and seat energy retailers
• Allegedly the 2 enterprise class flight attendants mentioned they had been on the identical airplane the opposite day, and the identical factor occurred
• The flight attendant mentioned that they had a visible of every flight attendant each time this may occur over the PA

Now there’s even video and audio of one in all these conditions.

Um, wow… that’s unusual!

What on earth might clarify this?!

Properly that is creepy, isn’t it? A number of ideas:

• There are sufficient studies right here that I consider this all to be true
• I really feel assured that this isn’t a prank by the crew
• I additionally really feel assured that it’s not a passenger bodily accessing a telephone related to the PA, based mostly on the repeated studies of crews keeping track of all telephones
• It’s fairly apparent that this isn’t a tech glitch, however somewhat these are noises made by a human
• It’s attention-grabbing how all of those incidents contain American Airways planes, although totally different ones

I’m about so far as you would get from a tech skilled (and conspiracy theorist, for that matter), but it surely appears fairly apparent that somebody is hacking the airplane’s PA system. The large query is whether or not that’s being completed from the airplane itself, or from the bottom:

• I might suppose that that is being completed from onboard the airplane, during which case I’m curious if American has appeared on the manifest for all these flights, and found out some widespread passenger on all these flights
• This isn’t simply so simple as somebody hacking the airplane’s important speaker, as there are additionally studies of the cockpit being referred to as
• Years in the past there have been studies of somebody having the ability to hack a airplane’s PA utilizing underseat IFE containers, however not all of those planes had IFE
• It’s fairly terrifying to suppose {that a} airplane’s PA system may very well be hacked someway with out anybody noticing, and I ponder how critically that is being taken; past internally at American, you’d suppose regulation enforcement could be investigating this as nicely

Backside line

It appears more and more seemingly that the intercoms on some American Airways planes are compromised. There have now been a number of studies, together with video and audio footage, of this taking place. The large query is how that is doable, and what’s being completed to deal with this.

Anybody have a idea as to what’s occurring right here?