JetBlue's DirecTV as Emergency Communications

I happened to be on a JetBlue flight from New York to Oakland last night, just as a different, New York-bound JetBlue flight made a successful emergency landing in Los Angeles. I didn't know about the drama in LA until after we took off, but I soon learned about it by flipping through channels on the DirecTV set JetBlue provides at every seat. MSNBC carried a live feed of the landing, and as the passengers on my flight turned on their TVs and let their seat-mates know what was unfolding, I could soon see the same MSNBC image on many of the screens ahead of me. DirecTV became our Emergency Broadcast Network. By the time the LA plane successfully landed, a good number of people on my flight broke out in applause.

I was disappointed that our flight's crew didn't address the LA flight's issue in some way -- preferably before the plane took off (which they would have had time to do -- we took off about half an hour before the LA plane landed), when we could have changed our own plans had we wanted to be abundantly cautious. Even a brief update in the air, that our landing gear had not been similarly affected on takeoff, would have been reassuring.

The whole situation reminded me of a United flight I took from San Francisco to Chicago in 1996. During that flight, a very muscular and very drunk passenger decided he wanted to get off of the plane in midair, and got into a fight with some flight attendants as he tried to find a way to do so. He later punched the plane captain in the nose, breaking his glasses, right in front of all the passengers. I happened to be sitting next to a beautiful FBI agent who, earlier in the flight, had fallen asleep on my shoulder, and during the brawl leapt up with another agent and helped steer the passenger into a seat where he could be controlled. All of this made for a great dinner party story later on, but at the time, the situation was, of course, completely unnerving. What amazed me most, though, was how the flight crew reacted once the passenger was under control. They abruptly turned off the movie that had been playing, and let static (video and audio) play for the last hour of the flight. They all immediately disappeared, some to watch the drunk passenger, but the rest in the back of the plane. Several passengers pressed attendant call buttons but got no response. They made no announcements of any kind -- not even "put on your seatbelts" -- as the plane eventually landed in Chicago, nor as the plane taxied and pulled up to the gate. Finally, the plane door opened, and the Chicago police swarmed in and removed the drunk passenger. Of course I was very glad that the plane landed safely, and that no more crew members were hurt before the police could arrive, but being completely in an information blackout was probably more frightening than knowing the real story would have been. Movie directors use this technique against you all the time; what's more scary, the monster you can plainly see, or the shark beneath the surface? Had the passengers needed to act in some way, we would have made serious mistakes with a possibly exaggerated threat in mind and no information to guide us.

What wound up happening last night, in contrast, was that any passenger who wanted to learn about the LA flight was able to do so. Anyone who didn't want to know could watch one of the other 36 DirecTV channels and at least take their mind off the situation -- so maybe our flight crew's decision last night, not to mention the emergency, was kind to those who preferred not to dwell on the possibilities it implied. I wanted to know; information is power. (I didn't, though, want to freak out the person in the seat next to me, who was not watching the news, so I listed to the MSNBC audio and turned the screen off until the flight came in to land.) Apparently the LA flight had DirecTV disabled for their landing. (I believe this was an intentional choice on JetBlue's part -- while some commenters have guessed the TVs might have been turned off for landing as part of the regular safety process, they were on throughout the landing of my flight last night.) Different reports have had passengers reacting differently to this -- the AP reports one passenger saying they "would've been so much calmer without [the televisions]," while the Times reports another passenger saying, "We had live coverage up until about 10 minutes before we landed [...] That was the scary part, when they cut it off."

My only regret after the LA landing was that I couldn't call my fiancée and make sure she knew I was on a different flight. With WiFi coming to planes, that's a short-term problem, and my ability to get live information will only improve. Of course, while all of this helps passengers get information and communicate out, it also helps any attackers who could possibily be on the plane. An attacker would be able to use DirecTV to know that other attacks were succeeding, once they hit the news; and would be able to use WiFi to communicate with other planes (which seat-back phones don't easily allow). Given the choice, though, I'd rather be informed and have an open communication channel others might abuse, than have to be in the dark when it mattered.