The long-awaited ability to use a cellphone or Wi-Fi connection on an aircraft might become a casualty of the latest aviation security threat.

It was revealed on 29 October that parcels containing a powdered explosive packed in laser printer cartridges had travelled undetected on aircraft to the UK and to Dubai in the UAE. A cellphone connected to a detonation circuit could have allowed a terrorist to trigger an explosion by calling or texting the phone.

This comes as the aviation industry is gearing up to provide broadband in-flight entertainment systems that feature both cellphone and Wi-Fi connections for passengers. These systems would mean that passengers would no longer need to illicitly use their cellphones when they come into range of ground masts at low altitudes near airports – a potentially dangerous activity that could interfere with the aircraft’s avionics.

Growing market

In-flight communications is a fast-growing market at the moment. Market researcher InStat of Scottsdale, Arizona, says that 2000 passenger aircraft are expected to have this kind of satellite broadband communications technology by the end of this year, compared with just “a couple of dozen” in 2008.


Last week’s discoveries cast doubt on the wisdom of in-flight communications, says Roland Alford, managing director of Alford Technologies, an explosives consultancy in Chippenham, Wiltshire, UK. He says he expects the technology to be scrutinised in the security reviews being undertaken by the UK government and US Department of Homeland Security in the wake of the discovery of the printer bombs.

The UK Department of Transport would not confirm whether the issue would in fact be on its agenda.

Cellphone trigger

It is not yet known whether the cellphones in the printer bombs were intended to be triggered remotely. They may have been intended simply as timers, as in the 2004 Madrid train bombings. But future devices could take advantage of wireless communication.

In-flight Wi-Fi “gives a bomber lots of options for contacting a device on an aircraft”, Alford says. Even if ordinary cellphone connections are blocked, it would allow a voice-over-internet connection to reach a handset.

“If it were to be possible to transmit directly from the ground to a plane over the sea, that would be scary,” says Alford’s colleague, company founder Sidney Alford. “Or if a passenger could use a cellphone to transmit to the hold of the aeroplane he is in, he could become a very effective suicide bomber.”

Manufacturers of the technologies will not welcome this fresh security concern, having finally gained airworthiness approval for their in-flight cellphone and Wi-Fi systems by proving that their microwave transmissions do not interfere with avionics.

“There are many ways of coordinating an attack without using a mobile phone,” says Aurélie Branchereau-Giles of OnAir, a company based in Geneva, Switzerland, that Airbus is backing as a maker of in-flight cellphone and Wi-Fi systems. “The position of our security experts is that the use of mobile phones on planes does not constitute any additional security threat.”