August 25th, 2008 by Mordy Gilden
when I heard about this story, I immediately thought of MoPocket’s creator, Justin Oberman. This sort of thing is right up Justin’s alley, and I’m sure he would have blogged about it had he not been overseas on vacation at the moment.
So, in his absence, I’ve decided to post this bizzare use of SMS technology.
According to an article in the Irish Times, a malfunction in a small aircraft carrying 5 people caused it to lose all onboard electrical power, communications and weather radar.
The pilot, who was unable to communicate with the air traffic controller using the plane’s equipment, decided to try using his cell phone to call and inform traffic control of his problem and intention to land “blind”.
However, the signal was not strong enough to maintain a voice connection, and the call was dropped shortly after describing his situation.
The air traffic controller, thinking fast, switched over to SMS texting to continue their conversation instead of trying to initiate a new call. Since SMS only needs a very brief moment of signal to deliver its message, the pilot and air traffic control were able to communicate even though the in-and-out signal made a voice conversation nearly impossible.
Using text messages, the air traffic controller was able to guide the twin-engined Piper plane to a safe landing.
Now THAT’s cool!
November 19th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
[…] reports an interesting case of a plane being landed safely thanks to SMS. Great to know that this technology can be relied on in the most extreme of circumstances. I was […]