A few days ago, I wrote about a strange thing that was happening with the American Airlines jets. Clues are pointing in a certain direction and initially this was a mystery.

Reports of weird noises on airplane intercoms

Some strange occurrences on American Airlines have been discussed in a thread by the always insightful xJon NYC.

There were repeated hacking, moaning, and screaming noises over the PA in the first report. The flight attendants stood by their phones to make sure nobody was using them.

"Currently on AA1631 and someone keeps hacking into the PA and making moaning and screaming sounds 😨 the flight attendants are standing by their phones because it isn’t them and the captain just came on and told us they don’t think the flight systems are compromised so we will..

— 🇺🇦 JonNYC 🇺🇦 (@xJonNYC) September 18, 2022

I think he's talking about messages from a flight attendant messaging board with similar reports.

https://twitter.com/xJonNYC/status/1572363005492629508

This is a report from a flight attendant on a plane.

  • The pilot called back to the flight attendants to see if someone was trying to get in touch with the cockpit, since their phone kept going off; when they picked up, someone was breathing into the phone, but didn’t say anything
  • Then the phone would start going off in the cabin, but when the flight attendants picked up, there was just a tone sound
  • Then there would suddenly be loud breathing, groaning, and moaning noises over the PA, and “it sounded completely out of a horror film”
  • Then the master power button near the forward left door would keep getting pushed, and would shut down all IFE and seat power outlets
  • Allegedly the two business class flight attendants said they were on the same plane the other day, and the same thing happened
  • The flight attendant said they had a visual of each flight attendant every time this would happen over the PA

Video and audio are available of one of these situations.

https://twitter.com/xJonNYC/status/1572356292135747585

The weirdest flight ever.These sounds started over the intercom before takeoff and continued throughout the flight.

They couldn’t stop it, and after landing still had no idea what it was. pic.twitter.com/F8lJlZHJ63

— Emerson Collins (@ActuallyEmerson) September 23, 2022

Wow... that is weird!

Was someone onboard playing a prank?

There were many theories as to what could have caused this.

  • Some suggested that someone was using the jacks from the plane’s medical intercom, as this system has receive and transmit key controls; however, American Airlines jets no longer have these
  • Some suggested that this was some sort of a pre-recorded announcement when an update was last made; however, given how sporadic this “glitch” is, and given that it involves multiple types of planes, that seems highly unlikely
  • Some suggested this wasn’t even a human noise, but rather was an artificial noise; listening to the audio, it seems pretty clear that this is a human noise
  • Some suggested this was some sort of a cybersecurity incident, but that seems virtually impossible, since these systems are hardwired with no external access and no Wi-Fi component

American responded to one of the incidents.

“Our maintenance team thoroughly inspected the aircraft and the PA system and determined the sounds were caused by a mechanical issue with the PA amplifier, which raises the volume of the PA system when the engines are running.”

I have no idea what that means, but I don't buy it. This doesn't sound like a mechanical problem with a PA amplifier. Someone is playing a game.

This incident will be solved and it won't happen again, according to a suggestion by xJon NYC.

SO, here's where my personal intuition says this is gonna end up:– not a cybersecurity issue– not poltergeist– human actor(s)– not "amplifier malfunction" (or anything like that.)– will be no more reports of this happening

– will be solved

— 🇺🇦 JonNYC 🇺🇦 (@xJonNYC) September 29, 2022

In the video that was filmed of the incident, you can clearly hear the "click" sound of the phone hanging up.

The most obvious explanation has been that a human behind this is on the flights. I want to know if there is a common person who was on all of these flights, whether a crew member or not.

I suspect that this is the detail that is least likely to be accurate, since flight attendants claimed that they had eyes on all phones.

I think this was a passenger, not a crew member, because a crew member wouldn't risk their job in this way. I don't know what punishment a passenger could face for this. Is interfering with aircraft systems a crime?

What was this person's motivation? I think it was to screw with people and see what they could get away with. This person was never caught because this happened many times per flight and on many flights.

It almost seems like this might have been an American Airlines non-rev, based on the fact that this happened on different types of American Airlines planes. The ability to score first class seats is one of the reasons why this jet is popular with non-revs.

It would make sense that this was someone in first class since they would be close to the master power button.

A non-rev wouldn't risk their privileges by pulling this prank.

Bottom line

There have been reports of strange noises coming from American Airlines. By the process of elimination, it seems more and more likely that this was a case of someone using the PA to make noise.

I am inclined to believe that he is correct, because he usually is. Since this is a saga that many of us have been following, we hope to learn who was behind this and what happened. I would like to know if this leads to an arrest or not.

Was a passenger playing a prank on the PA?

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