…silly typo in subject line edited by me, prompted by the “Allmighty Forum Commissioner, Dept. of Retention, Subgroup A.N.A.L” 
Let’s have some respect for one of the world’s oldest airlines by spelling the name correctly.
Qantas is the proper spelling (NO “U”)
They’re lucky the engines didn’t shutdown completely! I guess if they were flying Alitalia, they would’ve!
Just read the Alitalia post, and quite shocked with that, i’ve heard they can interfere with the electronics on board, but errrr how can they shut the fuel off from the engines?
With most new engines, and almost all turbines, having FADEC (Full Authority Digital Engine Control) controls nowadays the concern for spurious electronic emissions causing engine or aircraft control errors is widely prevalent.
The failure of BA flight 38’s engines to respond to pilot input while landing at Heathrow back in January was initially blamed by the tabloids on interference from a cell phone.
The current steady stream of hyperbolic conjecture on the part of the press to blame handheld electronic devices for aircraft control problems sells a lot of newspapers.
Personally I feel that if there’s any truth to the theory that a low wattage cell phone or Bluetooth device can disrupt an aircraft’s flight or engine controls that should be sufficient cause to condemn said aircraft. There are natural sources of EMI that are far stronger than cell phones or laptops.
The Qantas incident has been traced to an on-board computer fault…not from outside interference.
Story HERE
People can be so quick to blame PEDs/computers, etc…(we’ve had this discussion on this board before…) and this is a perfect example of faulty aircraft equipment being the cause. Flying machines are not, and never will be, devoid of problems or the potential of.
“About two minutes after the initial fault, (the air data inertial reference unit) generated very high, random and incorrect values for the aircraft’s angle of attack,” the ATSB said in a statement.
“These very high, random and incorrect values of the angle attack led to the flight control computers commanding a nose-down aircraft movement, which resulted in the aircraft pitching down to a maximum of about 8.5 degrees.”
So just another Airbus software error, nothing to do with consumer electronics. Don’t hold your breath for a retraction in the press though 
edited to add: I now learn it was an ADIRU failure, and since this has also happened to a MH 777, I withdraw my Airbus slur 
With most new engines, and almost all turbines, having FADEC (Full Authority Digital Engine Control) controls nowadays the concern for spurious electronic emissions causing engine or aircraft control errors is widely prevalent.
Yes but the flight was on a 767, correct me if i’m wrong but 767’s do not have FADEC
That’s just not true.
Earlier engine variants on the 757/767 may not, but many are FADEC controlled.
Consider yourself corrected.
That quoted text was originally posted by me and the full sentence is:
With most new engines, and almost all turbines, having FADEC (Full Authority Digital Engine Control) controls nowadays the concern for spurious electronic emissions causing engine or aircraft control errors is widely prevalent.
How is that statement not true Mark? I read every week in Aviation Week about how far manufacturers are going to harden their solid state engine and flight control systems against stray EMI. I’m not referring to cell phone or laptop emissions.
The key word here is concern.
I would hope the manufacturers are concerned about EMI and continue work on ways to prevent their systems from being affected. As with many other things in life, there is always room for improvement. The manufacturers showing concern for EMI is just one example of them working to improve systems.
I didn’t RTFQ (quote)… My apologies to 767nutter in mis-identifying the quote origin.
James… Due to the subject of the OP, I read into your statement as being directed toward PEDs, laptops, etc… After slowing down to comprehend your remarks, I agree that the concern of extraneous EMI/RFI is far greater than that of PEDs. Although, labeling these occurrences as “prevalent” might be a little strong IMHO.
Poorly worded sentence on my part I guess. It’s the concern that’s prevalent (e.g., widely held) not the occurrences.
Every engineer I speak to that’s involved with these systems will ultimately mention, if only in passing, that they’re not worried so much about generating bug-free code, they worry about outside influences causing hiccups in the engine or flight controls.
More like ADD on my part… 
Wait until you’re old like me and you walk into a room looking for something and can’t remember what it was when you get there!
What were we talking about? http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/images/smilies/confused.gif
No, it’s more like walk in the room, pick up what you want and forget what you wanted to do with the object you picked up 
Would you two quit airing my dysfunctions on the internet by masquerading them as your own! I have…
What the hell was I saying?..
Yeah, and then you give up trying to remember what it was, so you go back to where you were and doing what you were doing before - and THEN you remember what it was!!! Then you gotta go back to the other room again, and HOPEFULLY still remember what it was when you get there!
By then somebody moved the remote to another location!