If cell phones don’t work on an airplane (without cell phone boosters) then how…?

Question

If cell phones don’t work on an airplane then how did 9/11 victims call loved ones with their cell phones?

I recently watched “Loose Change 2nd Edition”, and there was this scientist guy who tested cell phones up in the air and their success rate during year 2000 to see if he had a signal. Lets just say it failed miserably to call out or accept calls. Then in 2004 (after 9/11) Boeing installed a cell phone booster on top of their airplane so that people could use their cell phones. Why do this if apparently the cell phone calls to family members came in so clearly during the 9/11 tragedy?

I wanted to find out for my self who was telling the truth. So I turned on my cell phone, and guess what. One the plane that I was on did not crash from having it on (even though I was NOT going to make a call, but just having it ON I swear doesn’t hurt anything, just like I have NEVER turned off my CD or MP3 players ALL M Y LIFE and the plane flies just fine). So when I was on the ground I had all my bars (a good signal). However, once up in the air I has NO signal at all! I didn’t get a bar back till about half a mile up in the air. So unless someone called from their cell phone in the last 15 seconds, I don’t see how they could have had a two minuet conversation with people or an answer machine.

Now I know big fancy airplanes have phones in the seats, but apparently most of the people didn’t use these phones to call people, they used their own cell phones. Which is Impossible, even a science dude proved that (I doubt it was a miracle either).

I found “Loose Change” was telling the truth.
Link to “Loose Change”:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7167151489146455453&q=Loose+Change+2nd&hl=en

If you don’t feel like watching the whole thing just fast forward to the time of “1:08:33”.

Or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loose_Change_(video)

By the way there is voice mimicking software that is very accurate just to let people know. I saw that on the Discover Channel about 9 years ago!

I’m not saying there wasn’t terrorists, I’m just saying the cell phone thing doesn’t make sense. It’s an inconsistency, which may lead one to wonder about other things. My concern is why would someone make up the phone calls, if they can’t/couldn’t happen?

So how did victims really call their loved ones?

Answer 1

Point 1: The airlines request you turn off the cell phones and other electrical devices because it may inter fere with the avionics of the airplane. If you ever looked at the manual of your radio, cell phone, mp3, etc, it says it meets with FCC code ####. That is only if it is working properly, if it isn't working properly, it can generate a radio signal that can interfer with the avionics of aircraft..

Point 2: Cell phones work on line of sight transmissions. They talk to relay stations and the newer models try to pick up the strongest frequencies. It works pretty well on land, but in the air there are two many stations to choose from the higher the plane is, it can confuse the cell phone. Flying closer to the ground will reduce the confusion and allow the cell phone to work. The older model cell phones would try to contact more than one tower at a time. One phone call in a plane would tie up have the towers in 200 mile radius. The request to not use the cell phones in a plane was originally from the mobile service providers. Since the cell phones have become digital and resemble computers, the conditions for them to work on a plane has to be very narrow. You might not be able to call your wife, friend, business, but you can still dial 911, but that would not be advisable unless there was a real emergency. You would not like the end results.

Answer 2

try watching the stonecutters episode of the simpsons