The Boeing Company Docket No: Fill & Download for Free

The answer will surprise you.Portable Electronic Devices (PEDs) carried on board by passengers have been the subject of much discussion and analysis..According to Boeing:“Operators of commercial airplanes have reported numerous cases of portable electronic devices affecting airplane systems during flight. These devices, including laptop and palmtop computers, audio players/recorders, electronic games, cell phones, compact-disc players, electronic toys, and laser pointers, have been suspected of causing such anomalous events as autopilot disconnects,erratic flight deck indications, airplanes turning off course, and uncommanded turns. Boeing has recommended that devices suspected of causing these anomalies be turned off during critical stages of flight (takeoff and landing). The company also recommends prohibiting the use of devices that intentionally transmit electromagnetic signals, such as cell phones, during all phases of flight. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission already prohibits the use of cell phones during flight. In addition, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration issued Federal Aviation Regulation 91.21 to make operators responsible for governing the use of portable electronic devices on their airplanes.The FAA set up an expert committee: the Advisory and Rulemaking Committee to analyze the changing scenario of PDEs and their effect on aircraft, and, upon their recommendations, adopted their final report:https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/ped/media/PED_ARC_FINAL_REPORT.pdfThe current regulations regarding PDEs, effective 2013, are illustrated in this picture:So, NO voice, NO cellular usage on mobile phones. You can, however, use the phone in Airplane Mode.This is because the FCC does not permit cellular activity inside aircraft.The reasoning for the FCC ban is as follows:Mobile phone terrestrial networks are designed to communicate with ground-based cellphones. The use of cellular phones in airplanes is banned because, at the altitudes we fly, too many cells are hit by any one transmission. Signals arriving from airborne cellphones will affect several mobile station receiving towers on earth, throwing the whole system into disarray.The FCC’s ban was adopted in 1991 based on the threat of widespread interference with terrestrial networks from airborne use of cell phones.Many U.S. airlines currently offer Wi-Fi connectivity to passengers’ mobile devices using FAA-approved in-flight connectivity systems. Like Airborne Access Systems, airborne Wi-Fi systems receive signals from passengers’ mobile devices and relay those signals to satellites or dedicated ground towers.With advances in technology and increasing public interest in using mobile communications services on airborne aircraft, the FCC issued its 2013 NPRM proposing to revise what it described as outdated rules. The FCC proposes a regulatory framework that would allow airlines, subject to application of DOT regulations, the ability to allow passengers to use commercial mobile spectrum bands on their mobile wireless devices while in flight.The FCC’s proposal would not require airlines to permit any new airborne mobile services; rather, it would provide a regulatory pathway for airlines to enable such services using an Airborne Access System (AAS).An AAS likely would consist of a base station (typically a picocell) and a network control unit. The system would receive low-powered signals from passengers’ mobile wireless devices and transmit those signals through an onboard antenna either to a satellite or to dedicated terrestrial receivers.In either case, the system would be designed to minimize the potential for interference with terrestrial networks that prompted the FCC’s original ban.Wi-Fi spectrum is capable of transmitting voice calls as well as other types of data, such as video and text messages. The FCC does not prohibit voice calls over Wi-Fi; the FCC’s current ban relates to the use of certain commercial mobile spectrum bands.The issue is complex; the FCC is working toward allowing mobile phone cellular usgae on aircraft using new technologies which do not disturb terrestrial networks; the FAA is proposing to require sellers of air transportation to provide adequate advance notice to passengers if the carrier operating the flight allows passengers to make voice calls using mobile wireless devices:14 CFR Part 260[Docket No. DOT–OST–2014–0002]RIN 2105–AE30Use of Mobile Wireless Devices for Voice Calls on AircraftAGENCY: Office of the Secretary (OST), Department of Transportation (DOT).ACTION: Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM).“The Department of Transportation (DOT or the Department) is proposing to protect airline passengers from being unwillingly exposed to voice calls within the confines of an aircraft. Specifically, the Department proposes to require sellers of air transportation to provide adequate advance notice to passengers if the carrier operating the flight allows passengers to make voice calls using mobile wireless devices. The Department also seeks comment on whether to prohibit airlines from allowing voice calls via passenger mobile wireless devices on domestic and/or international flights.”“The purpose of this action is to propose a method for regulating voice calls on passengers’ mobile wireless devices on flights to, from, and within the United States. Permitting passengers to make voice calls onboard aircraft may create an environment that is unfair and deceptive to those passengers. While the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) currently prohibits the use of certain commercial mobile bands onboard aircraft, that ban does not cover Wi-Fi and other means by which it is possible to make voice calls. Moreover, in 2013, the FCC proposed lifting its existing ban, so long as certain conditions are met. As technologies advance, the cost of making voice calls may decrease and the quality of voice call service may increase, leading to a higher prevalence of voice calls and greater risk of passenger harm.For these reasons, the Department proposes to require sellers of air transportation to provide adequate advance notice to passengers if the carrier operating the flight allows passengers to make voice calls using mobile wireless devices. Under this proposed rule, carriers would be free to set their own voice call policies, to the extent otherwise permitted by law, so long as carriers provide adequate advance notice when voice calls will be allowed.”The Department of Transportation (DOT)'s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), as currently drafted, would propose three (co-equal) alternative rules:(1) Prohibiting airlines from permitting passengers to use mobile devices to make voice calls on domestic flights and domestic segments of international flights;(2) prohibiting airlines from permitting passengers to use mobile devices to make voice calls on both domestic flights and international flights; and(3) not banning voice calls, but requiring sellers of air transportation to disclose in advance when a particular flight is one on which voice calls are permitted.The alternative to these three proposals is to take no action; this alternative would require no advance notice and would passengers to make voice calls to the extent that the FCC's rule, technological advances, and airlines' own policies would allow.As you can see, the issue is hardly settled.

Tl; dr: it’s as big as it needs to be be. The level of investigative effort varies based on the severity of the accident under investigation and the complexity of possible contributory factors or outcomes. The number of participants in a given investigation also might be shaped by the purpose of the investigation, i.e., prevention versus prosecution. (Read on for eye-glazing details.)Even within the U.S. military, there are different approaches taken to safety (“mishap”) investigations from one service to the next. The one I’m most familiar with is that of the Air Force, so that’s what I’ll use for the first set of examples.In general, the severity of a given occurrence drives how much investigative effort is expended. Per Air Force Manual 91–223, Aviation Safety Investigations and Reports, Table 5.1, if a person dies or an aircraft is destroyed, the resulting “Class A safety investigation board” customarily will have, as a minimum:Board PresidentInvestigating OfficerAir Force Safety Center RepresentativeMaintenance MemberMedical MemberPilot MemberRecorderAny of these individuals may enlist additional help — specialists in materials, manufacturer representatives to help identify specific pieces and parts, specialists in human factors, etc.).At the other end of the spectrum, a significant bending of metal or minor injury resulting in an event classified as Class C or lower usually is investigated by a single safety-trained officer.In any accident requiring investigation, the emphasis is on figuring out what happened to prevent the recurrence of a similar accident in the future. For military accidents, each also has to be treated as a potential “readiness” issue — for instance, involving something that could be a big enough problem to ground an entire fleet of aircraft — so the on-scene investigation might take longer than a civil investigation, or involve some back-and-forth by at least some of the safety board members.In general, though, military safety investigations tend to be relatively fast affairs, with an going-in goal of issuing a report with findings, causes and recommendations within a month or so for consideration by senior leadership. (If money needs to be thrown at an identified problem, it has to be found or at least programmed for as soon as possible.)Under Department of Defense rules, separate “accident investigations” are conducted more or less in parallel with each safety board’s work, although the two deliberately are held separate. The accident board has less “fact-gathering” to do (the safety board is required to give them all factual information and physical evidence they collect), so the AIB is smaller.Governed by Air Force Instruction 51–503, Aerospace and Ground Accident Investigations, the AIB is intended to develop a publicly releasable report. It may include sworn testimony (participants can assert the military equivalent of “pleading the Fifth” if they don’t want to speak on the record), and it can be used for pretty much any purpose other than accident prevention, including prosecution. It’s put together basically the same way;“The composition of the board is tailored to reflect the complexity of the accident. At a minimum, each board must have a board president, a legal advisor, and a recorder. The recorder should be a paralegal. Other appointed board members typically include: a pilot member or missile/space operations officer member, a maintenance member or missile/space materiel officer member, and a medical member. In aerospace asset mishaps resulting in a fatality or serious personal injury, the medical member should be a flight doctor.“ (Paragraph 3.4)For civil accidents, there’s a potential for much greater levels of effort being brought to bear on a given occurrence, again based on how much loss was suffered in the occurrence. In the Foreword to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) guidance for investigators and “parties” to investigation, the following passage shows just how complex an activity such investigations can be:“The procedures in this NTSB Aviation Investigation Manual—Major Team Investigations apply to “Go Team” investigations of major aviation accidents. An investigation of this type could involve more than 100 technical specialists, representing as many as a dozen parties and multiple Federal and local government agencies.”The most complex NTSB investigations consist of numerous “groups,” each chaired by a member of the NTSB staff. These focus on different aspects of post-accident evidence and data collection, and could involve any or all of the following:OperationsHuman PerformanceStructuresSystemsPowerplantsMaintenance RecordsAir Traffic ControlWeatherAircraft PerformanceFlight Data RecorderCockpit Voice RecorderWitnessesSurvival FactorsAirportsSome or all of the factual documentary materials collected by all of these groups may ultimately wind up in a “public docket.” However, internal group deliberations and the NTSB staff’s analysis are not made public. The final report generation and formal issuance of “probable cause” and recommendations is a very formalized process, involving the Presidentally appointed Board Members’ explicit adoption or modification of what the staff presents to them.At the opposite end of the spectrum, although the NTSB officially has investigative responsibility for all civil aircraft accidents, Board personnel outside Washington DC are pretty thinly spread. So, they often delegate the responsibility to conduct on-scene investigation to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Flight Standards District Offices (FSDO). Per FAA Order 8020.11, Aircraft Accident and Incident Notification, Investigation and Reporting:“The FAA [Investigator in Charge (IIC] will conduct an investigation of all accidents regardless of whether the NTSB accomplishes an on-scene investigation. In the absence of the NTSB, the FAA IIC has the same authority and responsibility as the NTSB IIC, but the FAA IIC is not working for the NTSB. The FAA IIC will, in accordance with NTSB policy, provide party status to companies and associations that have a right to participate in the investigation.” (Chapter 4, paragraph 4b)In a nutshell, this means that a small single-engine aircraft accident may be investigated by a single FAA air safety inspector, even if a fatality is involved; however, is is customary for the NTSB to do an on-scene investigation where loss of life has occurred.Finally, in countries governed by laws shaped by the Napoleonic Code | France [1804], judicial investigations often have primacy over safety-related investigations. (There’s an interesting and still reasonably current discussion on how this works in a quarter-century old master’s thesis — Aircraft Accident Investigation: The Need for a Stronger International Regime — available through McGill University’s on-line library.)A judicial (alternately, “juridical”) investigation may consist of a team of experts roughly mirroring a safety investigation’s composition; on the other hand, in many jurisdictions the judge, magistrate or prosecutor may control the safety investigators’ access to the scene, evidence, testimony, etc. while at the same time relying on much of what they generate, with he or she being the sole arbiter of criminal or civil liability conclusions drawn from that material.A few final observations. I cut my investigative teeth in a system that emphasized throwing as many resources as necessary to quickly identify and address new or emerging safety issues in the wake of high-consequence accidents. At the same time, the military is by law relegated to a place in line behind the NTSB any time a military aircraft is involved in an accident falling under the NTSB’s purview — the NTSB IIC runs their investigation as the lead agency, and the military board tags along behind them. (They even meet in separate rooms at a crash site.) So, speed doesn’t always prevail — legally mandated precedence has to be respected.There also have been occasions where a military accident is so horrific in its outcomes or implications that the public is deemed to have a right to know what happened, unfiltered, with everyone involved on the record. That means nothing is “privileged,” and the military safety investigation basically is subsumed by and run under the rules governing legal (“accident”) investigations. Those tend to be supported by big investigative groups, too. Two such accidents occurred during my time working for the Chief of Safety of the Air Force:1994 Black Hawk shootdown incident - Wikipedia, where President Clinton said on TV, “We will find out what happened and we will tell the American people.” This immediately precluded any “prevention” type of investigation from being conducted; it was the right call from a transparency perspective, but it devolved into a lot of finger-pointing that didn’t support much in the way of corrective action; and1996 Croatia USAF CT-43 crash - Wikipedia — when a sitting member of the Cabinet dies in a big Air Force jet, yeah, you’re going to have a single, full and open investigation just to avoid anybody trying to play one line of inquiry off another. The Air Force even requested and obtained NTSB assistance with this investigation due to the involvement of an airliner-type aircraft (the CT-43 was basically an Iron Age Boeing 737) as well as to assist with reviewing Croatian air traffic control, navigational aids, and instrument approach procedures through ICAO channels. Biggest damned report I’d ever seen to that point, but illuminating more for the leadership issues it documented than for what it actually said (or could say) about the crash itself. However, it also supported the formation of an “executive air fleet” review panel (President Orders Safety Review of Executive Air Fleet) that did a deep dive into all aspects of military flights supporting VIPs. That was useful.Finally, on one occasion, I had the responsibility of serving as a de facto on-scene investigator supporting a small AIB following the tragic midair collision of two Air Force helicopters (a long time ago). There was a very large safety investigation underway when I came out to take a swing at providing the first-ever post-accident “family assistance” (incorporating information about the investigative processes and reports into the other survivors’ and mortuary affairs support activities). As a trained safety investigator — and helicopter pilot — who was deliberately staying away from the safety investigation’s proceedings to avoid accidentally releasing any information related to the safety board’s activities to family members, I was an irresistible target for the AIB president.He scooped me up; we flew out to the crash site and then returned to go through the wreckage that had been transported back to the base. I took pictures, made notes, and wrote a factual summary of what I observed, along with considerations for him to use in developing his mandatory “statement of opinion” regarding the cause of the accident. Since I was privy to the results of both inquiries once I returned to my regular Pentagon duties, I can honestly say that the two independently created reports aligned quite well, despite the much smaller AIB. At the end of the day, access to the same facts and physical evidence tends to lead to the same outcomes, no matter how many bodies are thrown at the investigative effort.